Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc

Ironically, the longest hike of my life began with a train ride. Departing Chamonix, France for Les Houches, a mere fifteen minutes down the Arve river, I was on my way to the starting point for the Tour du Mont Blanc - known as the TMB. The TMB is a 105 mile celebration of the tallest mountain in Western Europe, Mont Blanc (15,774 ft). Circling but never summiting Mont Blanc, the TMB weaves through France, Italy, and Switzerland, and has been walked since 1767 when a Geneva scientist went searching for the best route to climb the then un-summited peak.

I am hiking solo - a new experience for me. Although, I have completed a couple multi-day treks, I am not exactly John Muir or even a moderately successful Boy Scout. I feel nervous about hiking by myself, but many times more excited to try something new.

Accompanying me is my Osprey backpack, three of every Clif Bar from the convenience store, and Kev Reynolds’ The Tour of Mont Blanc guide book. The book is the Bible of the TMB, everyone on the trail has a copy. The book partitions the TMB into 10 stages to be completed over 10 to 12 days. I will be following the classical counter-clockwise route, and hope to complete the TMB in eight days. Absent from my backpack is a tent; the TMB is a “hut hike”, meaning that on every stage there is a mountain refuge where hikers may have dinner and spend the night.

The train arrives in Les Houches. Following my guide book feels like a return to the Mapquest era: “From the railway station, cross the bridge…continue west past the tourist office…walk under the road tunnel…” I have never felt more accomplished to reach the starting point of a trail.

Stage one of the TMB is arguably the tour’s easiest, although it can be spiced up by embarking on one of two variant routes. Variant routes exist throughout the tour and promise better views in exchange for more climbing. Feeling sanguine, I choose all of the above and do both variants. Variant routes are like when you open Maps, fall down the proverbial rabbit hole, and pretty soon you’ve dedicated yourself to understanding the topographical intricacies of each Galapagos Island - once a variant caught my attention I had to explore it. Enjoying the challenge and basking in the views, I would end-up spending almost half of my time on the TMB on variant routes.

While day one was idyllically sunny, the weather of day two was not: heavy rain came first, then thunder & lightning, a mountain crossing in snow, and it all crescendoed in a descent turned muddy slip n’ slide. I loved it. Hiking in the storm felt epic, rugged, and as primal as life can feel on a 21st century well maintained trail when you have a guide book and (ideally) no predators. Making decent time, I stumble into Refuge de Mottets at 5:30pm, and am informed that instead of sleeping in the traditional refuge hall, I’ll be sleeping in the building reserved for tour guides. Major upgrade. The defining quality of most refuge sleeping halls is that there is zero space between beds - your “bed” is a portion of a big mat, on which strangers roll into each other all night. On the other hand, the guides’ quarters feature a luxurious two feet between cots. Later I learned that a group which had reserved 13 beds at Mottets, had arrived with 25 people. With the next refuge a half day’s hike away and the storm ongoing, Mottets had little choice but to accommodate the group, and thus were re-shuffling the entire refuge.

After explaining to my new roommates that my tour group consisted of me guiding myself, the guides showed me how much better life is in the guides’ quarters. Frankly, Saturday Night Live could do a half-decent sketch on guides’ quarters at TMB refuges. Perched at the ends of our beds, the group went in circles topping each other’s “you won’t believe what happened to my group” stories as each guide sipped from a flask of liquor they described as the signature of their local village. By night’s end, I had opinions on liquor from seven Alps villages, and a nickname from my roommates: “The Solo Guide of Mottets”. Before bedtime one of the guides shared that an Argentinian man had stopped by camp earlier in the evening and claimed that the weather for the next day would be much improved. I loved this part of the trail: in terms of directions this was the age of MapQuest, but in terms of information we were in the age of the Pony Express.

During day three and four I completed four stages, almost 34 miles, and crossed from France into Italy and then into Switzerland. On que, greetings transitioned from “Bonjour” to “Ciao” and back again. I often walked with friends I’d made at the refuge the night before, but inevitably there was alone time on the trail. I came to revel in these times. Walking solo felt like true solitude. In the non-TMB world, when confronted with relative solitude I transform the moment into media consumption time. I throw on a podcast, or scroll Twitter. I do anything to avoid doing nothing. These moments of tranquility felt new and refreshing. They were some of my favorite moments of the trek.

Not that every moment of solitude was a moving meditation. Walking solo, you find yourself to be quite the comedian, and I’d make many jokes to myself. Of course, you sing too. I distinctly, remember a moment during day three when I hummed a Sara Bareillis song and a Bo Burnham song back-to-back, and then stopped in my tracks humored by my mental DJ.

Day four was a delight: book-ended by steep climbs, the majority of the walk traversed gently undulating hills and featured uninterrupted views of Mont Blanc. I finished the day at La Puele, a dairy farm converted into a refuge. All refuges ask hikers to wear flip-flops inside the refuge, but La Puele is next level: upon entering, hikers are directed to a massive yurt where a complimentary pair of crocs is provided for your stay. A yurt, next to a dairy farm, on the side of a mountain, with rows upon rows of every color croc - it is quite the scene.

With my yellow crocs on, I reflected on reaching the tour’s halfway point. After four days, waking up, prepping my pack, and walking felt more normal. I had a beard occupying the in-between state of being too short to block the sun but too long to enable proper sunscreen application, and some newfound backpacking opinions:

1. There are few incentives to take an early lunch as convincing as knowing it will lighten your backpack. Speaking of incentives, nothing encourages reading a book more than lugging it around for a week to give yourself the opportunity to read it.

2. Say hi to everyone on the trail. It’s you, the mountains, and someone walking the other direction every 20 minutes - say hi!

3. Crossing international borders on a trek is uniquely satisfying. With a boyish grin I would stand with one foot in Italy and the other in Switzerland, and chuckle that only half my body was in the EU.

I also began to grasp the rhythms of the post-dinner refuge scene. Debating the merits of various backpacking equipment was the go-to social icebreaker. The group playing cards was generally the most fun. There was always a small group huddled over maps debating variant routes for the next day. Coffee was consumed late into the night, which I originally found odd, but learned was a hiker’s attempt to encourage the body to use the facilities at the refuge and not nature’s during the next day - very smart. Each evening at the refuge, people from all over the world would share stories and compare cultures - I looked forward to it everyday.

The morning of day five was gloriously downhill and social - it was the most people I had seen on the trail since day one. I even met a Cal Poly alumna who had hiked the TMB five years prior, and had returned for round two with her whole family. The lusciously green hills combined with a slight smell of manure was reminiscent of San Luis Obispo when the wind is blowing the wrong way. Each morning of the TMB, I made a video for my family. This morning I boasted that I shockingly did not have any blisters and that today would be the easiest of the tour. By day’s end, both those statements were false.

I arrived in the lakeside village of Champex by lunchtime. The plan was to relax the remainder of the day and complete the TMB over the three following days. Then, pinned to a refuge in town, I was greeted by the weather forecast: a storm was hitting the Alps in three days. After my Jungle Cruise of a day two, I had concluded that the biggest downside to hiking in a storm wasn’t getting wet or the muddy trail, but rather the absolute loss of views. Resolved to experiencing my remaining miles in clear skies, I relaxed long-enough to band-aid my first blister and embarked on the next stage: a 3,937 ft. climb to the highest point on the TMB, Fenetre d’Arpette.

The climb was tenaciously vertical, and halfway-up transformed from a typical uphill hike into scampering roughshod up boulders. Reaching the summit was a window into a new landscape: trotting along the mountain’s ridge were a family of ibex, to my left was the cascading Trient glacier, and unfolding below me was a grandiose valley leading to the town of Trient. During my hike I had been reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson - the tale of his walk on the Appalachian Trail (AT), the famed trail from Georgia to Maine. In one of my favorite passages, Bryson says “If there’s one thing the AT teaches, it is low-level ecstasy - something we could all do with more of in our lives”. Exhaustedly plopped on the summit of the Fenetre, I grinned from ear-to-ear at the picturesque view, a low-level ecstasy.

The day five audible meant I would complete the TMB in seven days. I spent day six and seven walking with Alicia and Nathan, a delightful couple from New Zealand and the best friends I made on the trail. They were also finishing the TMB and we joyously shared trail reflections over these final days. Day six was actually my easiest day on the trail, and while day seven was surprisingly brutal it felt like the triumphant final miles of a marathon.

In some ways, the TMB is fundamentally anti-climatic: you devote 105 miles and at least a week of your life to circling the monarch of the Alps, but never summit it. The end of the trail is arguably anti-climatic as well: no “Congratulations” sign or cheeky “0 kms to Les Houches” trail-marker. The trail simply becomes a road and that is it, you have completed the TMB! While the TMB may summit peaks, there isn’t a metaphorical “peak” of the hike. In a week full of allegories from nature to the real world, it was this theme of reveling in the journey which most resonated with me.

Six Hours at Auschwitz

It is 9am. The hour-long bus ride from Krakow, Poland has ended. I’ve come with a girl named Anne, a friend from school in Florence. We cross a parking lot and enter the Welcome building. We’re doing a six hour Study Tour. I feel so unprepared. How are you supposed to prepare for visiting a concentration camp? How are you supposed to prepare for visiting a death camp? A place where 1.1 million people died. A place that was the most important camp in the Nazis so called “final answer to the Jewish question”. What a disgusting phrase. I don’t know how to feel.

It is really cold, low 40s. I’m wearing four layers, shorts under my jeans, and a beanie. I’m still cold. Our tour guide tell us that the inmates wore only rags. Clothes we would wear to the gym or to the beach. It isn’t even winter yet. Last winter it got to -30 degrees at Auschwitz. The prisoners would have been wearing rags during that. I imagine wearing my thinnest shirt and shorts in -30 degree weather. I don’t feel so cold anymore.

Our tour of 15 people walks to the entry gate of Auschwitz I. It reads “Arbeit Macht Frei”. This means “Work sets you free”. This sets the the mood — it is so cruel. Here at Auschwitz, work will not set you free, it will kill you.

Auschwitz I is 25 or so brick buildings. 20 of these house prisoners, they’re called “Blocks”. The entire camp is the size of a football stadium. It is here that the Third Reich sent not only Jewish people, but Poles, Gypsies, homesexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet Prisoners of War, and prisoners from other ethnic groups. 90% of the 1.1 million people killed here were Jews. As the wind rustles the fall trees, it feels eerie.

We enter Block 4, then 6, 7, and so on. The blocks, where the prisoners used to sleep, now contain exhibits. We see images of Jewish people being sent to camps. Many thought they would return home someday, so they would bring their valuables, favorite clothes, family pictures, even house-keys to the camp. Their arrival would be the last time they would see those things. The valuables and clothes would be sent to Germany, to feed Hitler’s war machine. The pictures & house-keys would be throw into camp piles — living proof of the desperation of their situation.

Upon arrival they would be fully shaved, from head to toe. Girls would lose all their hair. We enter a Block with an exhibit containing bags of hair. Our tour guide tells us the Nazis would bag the human hair and send it back to Germany to be used in textile factories. Of course they would.

Each prisoner was given clothing marked with their “crime” upon arrival. Jewish prisoners received the infamous star, homosexuals received pink triangles, etc. They were also tattooed with their number. This number became their name, their identity. Humans treated like cattle.

We enter Block 11, where the Nazis would torture prisoners. Here the Nazis constructucted Standing Cells. Prisoners would be forced to work all day (12 hours), then four of them would be stuffed into one of these cells — forced to stand through the night. Outside Block 11, between it and Block 10, is the Death Wall. Here, thousands of prionsers were lined up for execution by firing squad. A man is leading the collection of people in prayer. I take a moment to pray.

We enter a Block that is playing a video with images of prisoners before they were sent to the camp, before the war, before they were persecuted. I can see them eating dinner out together, going to school, playing sports, doing everyday things. This video really gets to me. These people were persecuted for just being themselves. I have to wipe away tears.

The Block contains a huge book, called “The Book of Names”. It includes the names of the victims of the Halocaust. I find Anne Frank’s name. She died at Auschwitz. I read her diary in middle school.

We begin walking out of Auschwitz I. As I walk, I try to picture what the camp was like during the war. I look at the barbed wire electric fence & watchtowers, and imagine the Nazi SS soldiers looking down upon the prisoners. I look at the main ground, where prisoners were forced to line-up everyday for Roll Call. If the gaurds couldn’t locate every single prisoner, they would recount. Sometimes this would take hours. Often times in the freezing weather. I imagine the prisoners walking the camp, feeling hungry, wondering where their family is, and if they are even alive.

We walk across the double ring of electric fences that enclose Auschwitz, and enter the first Gas Chamber. The Nazi’s used gas chambers because it was more efficient, and was easier mentally on the guards compared to using a firing squad. As if the minds of those gaurds hadn’t already been completely lost.

We leave Auschwitz I, and our guide gives us a 30 minute lunch break. I haven’t eaten much today. I’m not hungry. We board a bus. It is a short five minute ride to Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

We arrive at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Auschwitz I is a concentration camp. “Concentration camp” means the prisoners work. Auschwitz II-Birkenau is a death camp, not a concentration camp. Prisoners do not come here to work, they come here to die. And “camp” is not the right word; this is a city. At its peak, Auschwitz II-Birkenau housed 100,000 prisoners. This is an industrialized death machine.

We enter the camp, right by the infamous train tracks that brought hundreds of thousands of prisoners. Upon arriving, the “cattle cars” as they were called, would unload and the people separated into two groups: those who would be sent immediately to the gas chambers, and those who would go to work. The groups of people immediately killed were children, elderly people, pregnant women, anyone who was sick, and sometimes women in general. Mere hours into arriving, they would be dead.

If you were not picked to die, it was not an act of mercy. Instead, you worked all day to prolong the killing machine. It became your job to remove corpses from gas chambers, or lay train tracks so more people could be brought. In Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the “lucky ones” were the ones who operated the toilets, because they had constant access to water. They spent all day moving human fecies. In Auschwitz II-Birkenau, these were the lucky ones.

We enter a barrack. Here people would sleep, four or five across, on one piece of wood. We visit the remains of where Josef Mengele, a German doctor, used to perform deadly experiments on people. We enter the only Children’s Bunker. There are playful drawings on the wall. My heart breaks again.

We walk to end of the camp, where the crematoriums were. There were four total crematoriums at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Here they would systemically gas people, then burn them. When they would enter the gas chambers after the gassing, they would find piles of dead bodies by the door.

We start walking back, the tour is coming to a close. Nobody is really talking. What could you even say? As we are walking I sit down on one side of the train tracks. I pray again. It feels like the smallest thing, but it feels right.

We pass through the gates. Leaving the gas chambers and barracks behind. This feels so powerful. I get to leave. I have only been here six hours.

I am not Jewish, a homosexual, or a Gypsy. But, I am human. I leave the camp behind, but not the feeling. I will never forget the feeling.

On the way out, our tour guide told us that last year 1.7 million people visited Auschwitz — the most ever. This year, they are expecting 2 million; this will break the record again. On a day of heartache, this makes me smile. It means that more people than ever are experiencing this feeling too. It means we are not forgetting. It means we are trying to learn from history.

It means that in the long run, love wins. Not hate.

Understanding Contrarians: Sam Hinkie & Joe Lacob

“What is something you believe to be true, that almost nobody would agree with you on?” - Peter Thiel, Venture Capitalist.

A question so simple, yet so hard. Often it is this question which lies at the core of the people, businesses, and sports franchises that define our time. They find something genuinely different and capitalize it. This question, is a contrarian question.

Wednesday night, Sam Hinkie resigned from his position as General Manager of the Philadelphia 76ers. The 76ers are 10-68 this season. On its face, the story of a GM with a historically awful record resigning does not seem like a story for a time when the Warriors are three games from the greatest regular season ever. Yet, I think the story of Sam Hinkie helps us understand something deeper about NBA success. For many, Sam Hinkie was the experiment in basketball. If that “Read on!” pitch was not strong enough, maybe this one will be: Sam Hinkie’s journey relates to the Warriors, specifically Warriors owner Joe Lacob. But, first, let’s rewind. Back to Hinkie.

Hinkie’s model of team-building, given the moniker “trust the process” for its long-term orientation, was plainly direct. Here it is, put in five sentences: Championships are what matter in sports. In basketball, championships are won by superstars. Superstars are most commonly acquired through the draft. Thus, you need to maximize your chance at picking at the top of the draft. To do that you need to lose, a lot.

Hinkie’s north star was the NBA Draft. Every trade he made was oriented around maximizing the draft. It is said that Sam Hinkie never “lost” a trade. In that sense he is the NBA’s version of Rob Stark in Game of Thrones: someone who won every battle, but lost the war.

The 76ers have been tanking, the sports term for not exactly committing all assets to winning in the present. Tanking in itself is not unique. The Warriors tanked to keep their pick in the 2012 Draft (leading to Harrison Barnes). The Spurs tanked to draft Tim Duncan. The league could brand itself as “where tanking happens” instead of “where amazing happens” and they would not be lying to us. What differentiated Hinkie was the extent to which he was willing to lose. Tanking occupies a weird place in the basketball world as both the path of least resistance to future success and the most painful one. The 76ers were different not in the type of pain they endured but rather in the amount they could tolerate.

Upon his resignation, Hinkie penned a letter to the ownership group of the 76ers. It was 7,000 words long and covered 13 pages. Yes, Hinkie’s letter had more pages than his team has wins. This letter was a manifesto. The tone is set in the third sentence when Hinkie references Atul Gawande, a renowned surgeon. Others referenced include Warren Buffet, Abraham Lincoln, and Elon Musk. Sections of the letter include “Thinking about thinking,” “Be long science.” and “A contrarian mindset.” This letter is as much a piece of academia as it is a basketball piece. To help convey the tone, I have included an excerpt below.

“A league with 30 intense competitors requires a culture of finding new, better ways to solve repeating problems. In the short term, investing in that sort of innovation often doesn’t look like much progress, if any. Abraham Lincoln said “give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

The letter is equally self-indulgent and thought-provoking. Hinkie cites generational people like Lincoln because he sees himself in them. The letter is not short on self-confidence, especially for a man resigning. Above all else, the letter preaches one doctrine: in the long run, contrarians win. To him this philosophy of the contrarian is what makes Buffet, Lincoln, Musk, and to an extended point, himself, different.

This brings me to Warriors majority owner, Joe Lacob, and a New York Times feature on him last week. The title of the piece, “What Happened When Venture Capitalists Took Over the Golden State Warriors” is like a flashing site saying “Contrarians!”. Below are a couple of Lacob’s quotes from the piece. 

On the Warriors organization: “We’re light-years ahead of probably every other team in structure, in planning, in how we’re going to go about things.”

On his background: “In venture capital, I started 70 companies. I also watched my partners’ deals, maybe 200 of them. That’s a lot of companies. I thought about the way we design a board of directors, the way we design the financing. There’s an architecture to it. And I started thinking about the architecture I would use when I owned and built my own team someday.

Hinkie and Lacob do not sound too different. Both a bit self-indulgent with a belief that their way is different. That they are the contrarian.

For Lacob it is his venture capital background that differentiates him. He hired a GM with no prior front office experience (Bob Myers) because a contrarian thinks fundamentally differently. He fired Mark Jackson, a coach who elevated the team from the Warriors we’d known for decades to a team that made the playoffs. He resisted the NBA norm of having one decision-maker and embraced a roundtable featuring Myers, Jerry West, Travis Schlenk, Kirk Lacob, Steve Kerr, and himself, because at tech companies the best idea wins – not the idea from the highest ranking employee. He rejected a trade offer that would have netted him Kevin Love, a consensus top ten player at the time.

Right now, Joe Lacob is the golden owner of the NBA. Sam Hinkie just resigned. Yet, I do not think their ideologies are that different. Attributing success to luck often sounds lazy but it cannot be ignored. The Warriors are lucky that Curry’s ankles healed. The Spurs are lucky they won the 1997 Draft Lottery to get Tim Duncan. Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors is lucky that sales for the Model S surged right as they almost sold the company to Google in 2013.

Sam Hinkie lacked luck. The 76ers never moved up in the draft order at the draft lottery. Yet, in the long run it is hard to discern luck from management smarts.

Sports are incredibly binary. You win or you lose. This is why they are the ultimate version of of reality television. It is also why we exaggerate the greatness of winners, and degrade the losers. When you are a contrarian and lose, you are massively out of touch; this is Hinkie. When you are a contrarian and win, you are different, special; this is Lacob. In the end, the winners are less genius than we think and the losers are closer to wining than we believe.

At their core, Sam Hinkie and Joe Lacob are not that different.

Defending Basketball's Best Play: The Steph/Dray Pick and Roll

Michael Jordan isolated in the middle of court, teammates knowing they should probably just get out of the way. Kobe in an extended post-up, pivoting into a fadeaway jump shot. LeBron going one-on-one, much like Jordan. These moments, the “tell the tale to your grandchildren” moments, have a narrative with a constant theme: the story is of a singular hero. With Steph Curry, that narrative changes. A second character is introduced: Draymond Green. Yes, Steph Curry runs isolations like Jordan, Kobe, and LeBron but when Steve Kerr needs a late-game bucket, the play is often a Curry-Green pick and roll. When teams prepare for the Warriors, they plan for the pick and roll. It’s their signature. It’s the most deadly play in basketball. It’s their version of the Jordan isolation.

The Warriors have five key differentiators: Curry, three point shooting, switch everything defense, the “death” small-ball lineup and the Curry-Draymond pick and roll. The pick and roll is the checkmate within the checkmate. It is so powerful that Kevin Love and Blake Griffin might get traded this off-season in part because the two are incompatible with defending this play. According to ESPN’s Zach Lowe, data provided by SportVU reveals that the Warriors score 1.26 points per possession when that possession involves a Curry-Draymond pick and roll. For context, the Warriors average 1.12 points per normal possession. The play is the equivalent of an NBA cheat code. So, I became curious, how could you stop it?

Over a decade ago, Dean Oliver wrote a book titled Basketball on Paper. The book became the bible of basketball analytics. In preparing for writing this piece, I struggled putting together an intuitive way to convey my ideas for how teams could stop the Curry-Draymond pick and roll. So, I’m going to experiment with a literal interpretation of Oliver’s book title and something we all used in youth basketball and/or when we got bored in class: paper drawings, complete with Xs and Os, of possible ways teams can defend this play. If you are not an NBA nerd, stay with me, this play cuts to the core of what make the Warriors special. The devil is always in the details.

I have divided the ways to play the Curry-Draymond pick and roll into three categories.

1. Theories Proven Wrong

2. For This, You Need The Guys

3. My Crazy Ideas

Before getting into the rotations of each play, below is an illustration of the base situation we will be starting with for each of these plays. Steph and Draymond near the three point line, with Klay, Harrison Barnes, and Iguodala spaced out around the three point line. Curry has the ball. 

Tier 1: Theories Proven Wrong

Go Under the Screen

In this set, Curry’s defender goes under Draymond’s screen. This technique has a clear flaw, the defense gives up a three to the point guard.

While this may work against can’t shoot point guards like Rajon Rondo and Ricky Rubio, it is death against the greatest shooter of all-time. Next!

Classic ICE

Bear with me, this one is a bit more complicated. Popularized by Tom Thibodeau’s Chicago Bulls, ICE denies the offense from using the screen and instead forces the ball handler the other direction. ICE gives up a long two point shot from the ball handler. 

Typically, ICE is a highly efficient defense, because it forces the offense into the inefficient long two point jumper. Except, with Curry any jumper is still a high efficiency shot, and if he can get Draymond the ball on the play, the defense is essentially wrecked. On to the next one! 

Blitz Curry

You will recognize this one. The Cavs used this throughout last year’s NBA Finals, and the Clippers have used this against the Warriors for years. The “blitz” is Curry’s defender and Draymond’s defender double-teaming Steph out of the pick and roll.

Problem: once Steph gets the ball back to Draymond, the Warriors have that famous half-court four on three you have likely heard about. Opponents used to defend this four on three by leaving Iguodala wide open for a three, and having his defender run at Draymond. Basically, throwing their hands up and saying “we concede the Iggy three”. Except, Andre is shooting 36% from this year which makes that strategy unsustainable. You can’t leave Klay because he is quietly a top ten shooter in the history of the sport, and HB is a 36% free throw shooter. We need to get more creative. Next.

Tier 2: For This, You Need THE Guys

True Switch

This scheme switches Draymond’s defender onto Curry, and Curry’s defender then defends Draymond. You might recognize this from your local gym, where everyone “switches” because they are too lazy to get through the screen. The idea behind the switch is that the guard does not get open space, because he is simply being passed off from one defender to another. The Warriors defense is especially good at this.

Only the highest caliber of mobile big men can execute this successfully. The list: Anthony Davis, Clint Capella, Tristan Thompson, and Serge Ibaka. LaMarcus Aldridge and DeAndre Jordan can kind of do this too, as long as there is a teammate somewhat close. In the future, young guys including Aaron Gordon, Kristaps Porzingis, and Karl Anthony Towns should be able to do this as well. One thing the big man switching onto Curry can’t do is begin backpedaling. That enables Curry’s signature step-back three. Yet, even with these mobile guys, this scheme is not playable for a whole game. Eventually, Curry will figure out the big guarding him.

What might work for a whole game, is if the Cavs play LeBron at power forward, have him defend Draymond, and then have him switch on Steph in pick and rolls. That interplay could be an entire piece in itself, but it is limited by three things: the Cavs have four big men who deserve minutes (Mozgov, Thompson, Love, and Frye), LeBron hates playing power forward (because it is more physically taxing), and the Warriors could counter this by screening LeBron beforehand so someone else switches onto Draymond before the Curry-Draymond pick and roll. With all that said, Cleveland should try this.

Guard Goes Over & Big Shows Hard

The Spurs used this quite effectively in their win over the Warriors this season. The idea: Curry’s defender follows Curry as if they’re lining up “single file” and Draymond’s defender jumps out in front of Curry. Once Curry’s defender recovers, Draymond’s defender goes back to guarding Draymond.

This scheme, much like the previous one, requires an exceptionally athletic big man. Yet, since this requires less time guarding Curry, the big does need an Anthony Davis level of mobility. This scheme fits DeAndre Jordan and LaMarcus Aldridge quite well. An additional complication is in the big man’s decision of when to leave Curry and return to guarding Draymond. Leave too early and Curry has room to shoot before his defender recovers. Leave too late and Draymond’s open. This requires Draymond’s defender playing a fast-paced game of mental geometry.

Tier 3: My Crazy Ideas

Send Three Defenders

In terms of classic pick and roll defense, this scheme is pretty radical, but we are dealing with the best play in basketball here! Desperate times call for desperate measures! Here is the idea. Curry’s defender goes over the screen and Draymond’s defender switches on to Curry, creating a double-team on Curry. Theoretically, this stops Steph. Simultaneously, the weak-side defender (Klay’s defender in this case), switches onto Draymond to stop the Warriors signature half court four on three before it begins. After that, everyone on defense scrambles!

There are a couple of downsides here. This defense requires real practice time to implement and thus can only really be done in the playoffs when teams have that sort of preparation time. Additionally, the defender switching onto Draymond MUST not allow Draymond to get any momentum towards the basket. Remember, the defender who began the play guarding HB is now defending Klay AND HB. With all that said, I think it is worth a shot!

ICE 2.0

ICE returns! This is my other radical idea. Curry’s defender performs classic ICE defense, and the closest wing defender (Klay’s defender in this illustration) rotates over to double team Curry. Much like the last scheme, this leaves one defender guarding Klay and HB but it does stop Curry and Draymond.

This is a bit less practical than my previous scheme, but it could work if Curry was super hot and the defense was willing told devote all resources to stopping him.

Pick and roll partnerships can be a fickle thing. They are as much an art as they are a science. Remember when we all thought the LeBron-Love pick and roll was going to conquer the world in Cleveland? The Steph-Draymond pick and roll is a genuinely special play.

No matter which scheme(s) teams use against the Warriors, they must fully commit. Go halfway against the Warriors, and you die. This is basketball on paper, and the paper opponents commit to will likely decide the NBA Playoffs.

Hypothetical NBA Trades from Two College Roommates

In the era of Dub Nation that scholars humbly refer to as Before Kerr (BK), three dates dominated the calendar of Warriors fans: the NBA Draft Lottery, the actual NBA Draft and the ever-exciting NBA Trade Deadline. Selfishly, these 46-4 Warriors have taken the fun out of the NBA Trade Deadline; every hypothetical Warriors trade ends in “yea, but we are 46 and 4, and you can’t really change that”. I refuse to accept the idea of a boring Trade Deadline so this called for a different type of article. 

So often the best hypothetical trades, the best “who says no” ideas, come up as two friends spitball ideas. That belief was the inspiration for this piece. A couple weeks ago my college roommate Trenton Scharrenberg brought the NBA’s version of a flowchart to my room. The flowchart detailed a four team trade that boggled my mind and made decent sense for every team involved. Better yet, debating the trade meant neither of us was doing our homework- a win-win situation. So, I have ask Trenton to join me on an exploration of hypothetical NBA trades. I have come up with two of my trades of my own- think of those two as this piece’s opening acts- and then I’ll let Trenton unleash his beast of a trade. Throughout we will be commenting on each other’s ideas, spitballing if you will. Trenton has not heard my trade ideas yet. 

A little background on Trenton…

• On a resume level he is a sophomore finance student at Cal Poly SLO and was the QB on his high school’s football team.

• If Draymond sets the culture for the Warriors, Trenton sets the culture of our apartment. In related news, he owns a Draymond jersey.

• Trenton’s basketball credibility: he leads the Cal Poly Rec Center in game-winning threes and every week helps me narrow down my idea of what I should write about (he also proofreads and vets all my Tweets).

We created a shared Google Doc and put this piece together. Prepare yourself for some hypothetical trades!

Trade One

Jared

Trent, welcome to Warriors World!  In the intro I referred to you as Trenton, but some call you Trent. The readers need a definitive name to address you by in their fan mail for you. Your response?

Trenton

Well, my mother prefers Trenton. So, to please her, let’s go with that. And thanks for having me.  I’ve had my espresso shot and I’m ready to go.

Jared

Let’s go! Okay, for trade number one we are keeping it simple: the Knicks trade Carmelo Anthony to the Clippers for Blake Griffin. Think about it. Melo’s prime does not align with Kristaps Porzingis’ (the official mascot of our apartment) prime and Clippers need to win NOW. Does either team say no to this? 

Trenton

Well, this is an exciting start. I get to balance my general Carmelo hate with my Clippers hate. First off, bless the PorzinGod (feels necessary). I am not much of a Carmelo fan and have always thought he can’t be the guy to lead you to an NBA title, and if I was the Knicks I’d be looking to get rid of him and his massive contract to build the team around the greatest Latvian of all time (sorry Andris Biedrins). As for the Clips, they are sitting an hour plane flight south of a potential dynasty and see their title window falling shut. So on the outset, I can see both teams looking into this.

Jared

BIEDRINS! True story: during elementary or middle school (can’t remember, I’ve had too many espresso shots this week…we must go shopping together), there was an earthquake WHILE Biedrins shot a free-throw. Of course, Biedrins swished that one. The next one, AKA the one with no earthquake, he clanked. Seemed emblematic.

Trenton

Well in that case, I’ll be hoping for a quake when you’re at the line in our next intramural game….

Jared

SHOTS FIRED! Back to the topic! I’d like to remind readers of this Doc Rivers quote from before the season…

We’re right on the borderline,” Doc Rivers tells Grantland during a long sit-down at his office. “I have no problem saying that. I’m a believer that teams can get stale. After a while, you don’t win. It just doesn’t work.”

On the “stale-meter” the Clippers are the reason I need to go to the grocery store tomorrow! Blake just broke his hand punching a trainer and Blake plus DeAndre can’t play crunch-time play vs the Warriors. Melo at the four gives them a chance. Bring in Melo. So, are we in agreement on this?

Trenton

I think this is example of the Warriors affecting the psyche of the league. We are talking about the Clippers like they have nothing going for them but they are 32-17, have two legitimate superstars and are sitting comfortably at the four seed. However, they’re 13 games back of the one seed and it feels like a big gap between them and the trio of Golden State, San Antonio, and OKC. Also, from the outside, their locker room morale seems to be bracing for something between imminent disaster and the Twitter boardroom a few weeks ago, so a potential shakeup seems positive. If they believe one shuffle can vault them to the level of the aforementioned franchises, then this seems like a good deal. Or they blow it up and try to get young talent and draft picks for Blake (and maybe even Paul) and set themselves up to be the best team whenever the Warriors magic dries up.

Jared 

Sorry, give me a second, I’m thinking about the shattered state of my Twitter investment. 

On the bright side for the Clippers, they’re got a proven GM in Doc Rivers! Oh wait….

Danny Leroux, Warriors World lead writer/editor and Cézanne of the Trade Checker: There are two other things to consider: Melo’s no-trade clause and the Clippers’ goals. While the Clippers are arguably the team Anthony would be most open to joining right now, it would be a big change for his family and he also gets a big trade bonus if he makes it to the off-season before getting moved. Also, Melo turns 32 this year and the younger Griffin is better than him already. The Knicks would love to do this and Doc may very well be open to it because he and I are very different people.

Trade Two

Jared

Okay, on to trade number two. We are keeping Blake involved because his hand is the size of a grapefruit right now, but we are upgrading our number of teams involved to three. The trade: Cleveland trades Kevin Love (the name everyone was waiting for!) to the Clippers, the Clippers trade Blake Griffin to the Portland Trail Blazers (you’re probably wondering, “Portland?!”), and Portland trades CJ McCollum (a starter on the Almost All-Star team) and Al-Farouq Aminu to Cleveland. My reasoning…

• The Clippers get Love, the perfect floor spacing power forward to DeAndre.

• Portland gets Blake Griffin. Sit back and imagine the Blake – Damian Lillard pick-and-roll.

• Cleveland gets the wings they need to compete vs the Warriors. Love has been a spot-up shooter there. Cleveland needs wings and Aminu gives them a lengthy wing that would let them go small, and McCollum could lead the bench unit (AKA less time for Dellavedova which would restore order to the universe). Am I crazy or is this reasonable?

Trenton

Ohh, initial thought: checking out C.J. McCollum highlights is significantly more fun than the physics homework I should be doing. Blake seems like a great get for the Blazers. They’re teetering at the eighth seed right now, so trading two starters for heavyweight boxer wannabe Griffin might put them out of the playoffs this year, but it would put them a piece or two from potentially contending next year. For Portland, it seems like a good move if they’re tired of waiting for this team to develop and want to maximize Lillard.

I am completely jaded by the last GSW-CLE game in my analysis of Love. He just can’t hang when he has to guard Draymond (particularly when Dray was the screener on pick and rolls) so I’m not jumping out of my seat to pick him up. The winner of this might be Cleveland. It is admitting Love was a mistake but they get a younger version of JR Smith in McCollum and a solid piece in Aminu. I like Love to the Clips on paper primarily for the outside shooting. But I’d rather have Griffin (who seems better everytime I watch him play) and his improving offensive game over K-Love (who seems like he was better hiding up in Minnesota.)

Jared 

Much of this depends on how impulsive Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is. Although, judging from this video he doesn’t seem like a patient man…

https://youtu.be/uM61HIqLBeI

Jared

Okay, to our final trade. I do not know if the people are ready for this. The stage is yours.

Trenton

Well the whole idea for this piece sprung up a few weeks ago when Jared sprinted into my room to discuss a hypothetical Blake for Kevin Durant trade. Thinking about the midterms I had coming up, I made the only rational decision to compound this thought and spend the rest of the night building a trade that was obscene yet could make sense for each team. The proverbial domino in this situation is the Thunder deciding they won’t get Durant back in the offseason and want to ensure they get value for him.

Here it is, our four team mega trade:

Jared 

*Grabs another espresso shot (while admitting he has a caffeine problem)*

Trenton

• The Clippers end up receiving Durant and Hassan Whiteside.

• The Heat get Blake and Serge Ibaka.

• The Washington Wizards add DeAndre Jordan and the anomaly that is Dion Waiters.

• And finally OKC picks up their value in the form of Chris Bosh, Bradley Beal, handsome Justise Winslow, and a first round pick from both the Clippers and Wizards.

Before Jared gives his thoughts, we acknowledge this would never happen in real life, but trust us that it’s worth looking through…

Jared 

The mic drop of trades! We could call this the “Trade Heard Around the World”. That or I have just been listening to the musical Hamilton too much. I threw this trade in the NBA Trade Machine and made a couple small changes for the salaries to match up. The changes: Washington sends Nene (redundant now that they have DeAndre) to OKC and Garrett Temple to Clippers. This balances the salaries.

Before I analyze, a moment of silence for the time people were debating if DION WAITERS was better than Klay Thompson. Now, I like this deal for four reasons. 

1. OKC’s owners have a history of being money-driven. At the core of the reason they traded Harden is the fact didn’t want to pay the luxury tax. Getting Beal, Winslow, and the picks lets them sell the future (hope sells tickets!) and the present with Bosh. Also, if Durant wants out, this is an incredible haul.

2. Good lord this is a non-brainer for the Clippers. Durant would give them 150% of what Blake currently gives them and Whiteside is not THAT different from DeAndre.

3. Miami mortgaged their future (via trading loads of draft picks) for their current team that is likely a second round playoff team at best. Picking up Griffin and Ibaka would give them the most interesting frontcourt in the NBA. Ibaka can space the floor and protect the rim. Blake can operate at the elbow. What a fun duo. Especially when you’re giving up a 31 year-old Chris Bosh, a guy who likely isn’t resigning there (Whiteside), and a rookie in Winslow (although, man is he good).

4. I love this for Washington. Beal’s health is remarkably unpredictable and DeAndre would form one of the league’s best pick and rolls with Wall.

Can we go make this trade in NBA 2K and watch the NBA landscape tilt on its axis?

Alright, you’ve got physics homework and I’ve got too much expresso in me not to do my homework, but thanks for joining us this week. Shoutout to Trenton’s Twitter handle @TSberg8.

Trenton

Thanks for having me, If you need anything else, I happen to live 15 feet away (longer than your jumpshot range) and would be happy to help. Go Dubs!

Jared 

Jump-hooks win intramural championship! Have a great weekend everyone.

Golden State's "If-Then" Offense is Disrupting Basketball

So often, the hue of hindsight appears to be vividly clear. We remember defining innovations as if they were always sure things. We forget that the assumption behind the telephone’s invention was that telegraph operators – not everyday people – needed to communicate with each other. We forget that the first automobiles were almost universally regarded as mere toys for the rich. We forget that for a time we thought Facebook was a fad - as of yesterday, it has 1.59 billion users.

History has virtually guaranteed that the great innovations of the present will be somewhat trivialized. The Warriors are not enabling global communication or transportation but in the lens of basketball they are an innovation. Yet, what makes them truly innovative? The team is so highly covered by the media (which I guess I am weirdly a part of) that analysis on them has become as full of buzz words as a Silicon Valley elevator pitch. Positionless defense! Malleable playing styles! Three-pointers! To be fair, I am guilty of this myself.

I do not think the Warriors’ true innovation derives from a theory their analytics department calculated or a revelation that Steve Kerr unearthed during an all-night game tape review with Luke Walton. I think the Warriors’ true innovation is more simple than that and relates to something almost all of us can identify with: pickup basketball games.

Pickup (or open gym) basketball is illustrious for its lack general lack of passing on offense. It has no structure, no plays and no one really cares if their teammate scores. The worst kind of basketball offense is a bad pickup basketball offense. That said, there is another side to this because I believe that the best type of basketball offense is a great pickup basketball offense. This means an offense with minimal structured plays that relies on players reading the situation as it develops. In this structure, everything is a reaction. Thus, it becomes impossible for the defense to predict the next move.

This offensive structure becomes easier to understand if you think of it as an “If-Then” statement, like you would use in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. “If-Then” basketball shifts the dynamic from a more classical basketball offense (Pass A, to Pass B, to Shot C), into one that is entirely dependent on the defense.

The Warriors play an If-Then offense and Monday night’s Spurs game was a prime example. The Spurs often tried to hide point guard Tony Parker on Warriors wings because he (understandably) cannot guard Steph. When the Warriors saw this, it immediately triggered an If-Then statement: the “If” was Parker guarding someone half a foot taller than him (Livingston, Iguodala, Klay or Barnes, mostly), and the “Then” was that the Warriors would immediately post-up whoever Parker was guarding.

• With seven minutes left in the first quarter, Parker was defending Harrison Barnes. So, the Warriors immediately posted-up HB. Bucket.

• With nine minutes left in the second quarter, Parker was back guarding wings. So, the Warriors posted-up whoever he was guarding three possessions in a row. Bucket, bucket, bucket.

This story of If-Then basketball is present in almost every big opponent the Warriors play.

• The Cavaliers: If Kevin Love is in the game, then the Warriors incessantly run pick-and-rolls with the player Love is guarding because Love lacks the footwork to switch on to guards or effectively hedge the play. This simple If-Then correlation has made Love almost unplayable vs. the Warriors in the fourth quarter and is part of the reason the Cavs just fired a coach who was 83-40!

• The Clippers: If DeAndre Jordan is guarding Draymond or Harrison Barnes (because the Warriors have gone small), then the Warriors immediately run pick-and-rolls with the guy DeAndre is guarding.

The story of If-Then offense is not limited to just exploiting mismatches, it is omnipresent in the flow of Warriors games. You can see it when Draymond cuts to the basket out of a pick-and-roll because his defender double-teamed Steph and when Klay curls from under the basket to the free throw line and immediately tosses a lob because his screener’s defender followed him too.

Once you begin understanding this If-Then offense, the pertinent questions change. How was it created? How can other teams replicate it? What makes this situation unique? Like most questions, these yield a couple answers.

1. The Warriors have incredible roster continuity, with 12 returning players from last year’s championship team. The most important component of a reactive offense is trust. If Klay recognizes the double-team but Festus does not, then Klay’s lob is just a turnover discouraging future reactive plays. Give Bob Myers, the Warriors’ General Manager, credit for the continuity he emphasized. As a GM, the hardest thing to do is nothing. If you mix up the team, you can sell your owner (your boss) on the future of this group but not changing things means immediate judgment on the present.

2. The Warriors placed a value on acquiring players who can pass and have high basketball IQs. Most teams have one high IQ passer, maybe two if they’re lucky. The Warriors have four: Steph, Draymond (currently seventh in the NBA in assists per game), Iguodala and Livingston.

One of Bob Myers’ go-to quotes is that “it’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” At its most basic level, that is what If-Then basketball is.

When everything is a reaction, game-planning for the Warriors become futile. It leads to quotes like this from ESPN’s Zach Lowe, “Seriously: waiting out Golden State’s run of dominance is already a topic of conversation among team executives.”

While the Warriors get enough credit and respect for their emphasis on threes, small-ball, and switching defense, the foundation of their offense gets overlooked. Most basketball offenses are still defined by linearity: this play call leads to this formation which leads to this movement which leads to this desired outcome, very much like football. What the Warriors are doing is like soccer. Reacting instead of predetermining.

The reason it will prove challenging (if not impossible) to copy the Warriors is because as Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank says, “trust is built in drops, and lost in buckets.” If-Then offense requires years of built-up trust and that is the true innovation we get to watch three times a week.

The NBA Fan Confidence Rankings: Part Four

Welcome to the conclusion of the NBA Fan Confidence Rankings! Click here for Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

We are halfway through the NBA regular season. The stereotypical sports talk radio host would say that the second half of the season is when teams develop into their true identity and gain momentum for the playoffs, thus implying that the first half of the season, the half we just witnessed, is subservient in value to the second half. That is what most fans think and it is a logical conclusion.

Yet, it turns out that ideology is wrong. In a phenomenal piece published in 2012, ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh (link here!) analytically illuminated a core NBA insight: the record of a team during the first half of a season has a higher correlation with post-season success than a team’s record during the second half of the season. In the fabled words of former NFL coach Dennis Green, these teams “are who we thought they were.”

Knowing this revelation of the first-half of the season really mattering, let’s proceed to the conclusion of the NBA Fan Confidence Rankings.

1. Team Apocalypse

2. Team Do Not Renew the Season Tickets

3. Team At Least We’ve Got This One Thing

4. Team Future

5. Team Only A Couple Moves Away

6. Team Contender

I have six teams in The Team Contender category. These six will be analyzed in order from least in contention for a title to strongest contender. Starting with the…

Toronto Raptors: 27 Wins – 15 Losses

Scouting Report: In the name of American exceptionalism (also word count) I will keep this section short. This season I have seen the Raptors answer multiple question marks that have been looming over them. Guards DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry have shown they can effectively coexist. The two are sharing ballhandling duties, DeRozan is making up for his lack of shooting by attacking the rim relentlessly and Lowry is hitting almost three three-pointers per game.

*Side-note: DeMar DeRozan clearly concurs with the character Margo Roth Spiegelman from John Green’s book Paper Towns, that middle letters deserve to be capitalized too. As Spiegelman says, “the rules are so unfair to the letters in the middle”.

TV Viewing Tip: Not every drive to the basket has to be done at light-speed. Yes, he is a monster athlete, but DeRozan is exceptionally good at using hesitations halfway through his drive to get to the rim. It is super effective and probably a move all of us could add to our own slowly deteriorating pickup basketball skills.

Big Question: The Raptors are loaded with assets. They have the Knicks’ first round pick this year (unless they jump the Nuggets in the lottery), the Clippers’ first rounder next season, all their own first rounders and a collection of young players with real value (Terrence Ross, Bismack Biyombo, Delon Wright and Bruno Caboclo). They also know they cannot realistically challenge Cleveland this year. I think they are the NBA’s most intriguing Trade Deadline team. Will they make any moves?

Los Angeles Clippers: 27 Wins – 14 Losses

Scouting Report: The Clippers are so confoundedly entertaining that the coach’s son carrying a bigger load than he should is their eighth biggest storyline! This season was supposed to be different for the Clippers. They added Josh Smith, Lance Stephenson and Paul Pierce to improve their depth and championed an “expanded role” for DeAndre Jordan. 41 games in Lance Stephenson is their ninth man and has completely lost Doc Rivers’ trust. Josh Smith is eleventh (eleventh!) on the team in minutes played per game, and nothing about DeAndre’s game has really changed. DeAndre is playing the same number of minutes per game as last season, still only shooting six times per game and his usage rate remains unchanged at 14%.

The Clippers need to evolve to win the western conference. Yet game after game nothing changes. Blake Griffin still does not know what to do versus double teams. Austin Rivers still plays huge minutes at backup point guard even though he averages 2.1 assists per 36 minutes and generally does not acknowledge that teammates exist. For comparison, James Michael McAdoo, the Warriors 14th man who plays power forward or center, averages 2.2 assists per 36 minutes. The Clippers still have the emotional composure of a college student who did not get their daily dose of Starbucks AND just found a parking ticket on their car. Finally, the Clippers still have no answer for the Warriors’ small ball lineup. I realize that was a bit of a rant but the Clippers’ lack of evolution is downright frustrating (although quite beneficial for Warriors fans).

TV Viewing Tip: As you watch the Clippers play, ponder this question: if his name was not Doc Rivers, would Doc Rivers be on the hot seat?

Big Question: In the final eight minutes of a game versus the Warriors (a fairly likely second round opponent for Clippers), who plays versus the Warriors’ “Death Lineup” of Curry-Klay-Iguodala-Barnes-Draymond? They cannot play DeAndre because the Warriors will simply pick-and-roll him to death and he lacks value on offense because he cannot hit free-throws. This leaves Blake Griffin to play center. Who does Coach Doc surround Blake with?

Oklahoma City Thunder: 32 Wins – 12 Losses

Scouting Report: Durant and Westbrook are genuine basketball wonders. Westbrook plays like peak Derrick Rose every night and somehow is not chronically injured because of it. Durant is a seven footer who might be the NBA’s best perimeter scorer. Any pick-and-roll involving these two is immediately one of the best plays in basketball. We are lucky to watch these guys. That said, the Thunder have over-invested in big men and under-invested on wings. Their best lineups feature Durant at power forward and Ibaka at center yet they spent consecutive first-round picks on big men (Mitch McGary and Steven Adams) and just gave a max contract to center Enes Kanter. There is hope though. A closing lineup of Westbrook-Dion Waiters-Anthony Morrow-Durant-Ibaka is still deadly on offense and Waiters is playing scrappier defense this season.

TV Viewing Tip: Any time Dion Waiters is shooting a free-throw. rush to your television! Waiters’ free-throw percentage has declined the past two seasons and he believes must of his misses are to the left. So, Waiters came up with the logical solution: he began shooting his free-throws off-centered from the basket. He moved to the right, so his free-throws resemble more of an elbow jump-shot than a free-throw. I swear I’m not making this up. I am not sure if Waiters is still doing this but if so you must see it.

Big Questions: Would you rather have Westbrook and Durant or Curry and Draymond? With Durant’s free agency approaching, has any team ever had more at stake in one single season than OKC does right now? This team could look massively different very soon.

Cleveland Lebrons: 29 Wins – 11 Losses

Scouting Report: Here is a sentence I did not expect to type today: the Cavs remind me of the Federalist Papers written by John Jay, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton which advocated for the ratification of the US Constitution. This just got super nerdy, I know, but stay with me on this analogy. When people think about the authors of the Federalist Papers, they think of a big three: Jay, Madison, and Hamilton. Yet, here is what is less commonly known. Of the 85 essays written, Jay wrote a mere five, Madison wrote 29, and Hamilton wrote the other 51! Right now, LeBron is Hamilton, Kyrie Irving is Madison, and Kevin Love is Jay. All of this to say that the Cavs’ Big Three is not working like it should. Love has once again been reduced to a spot-up three-point shooter and the team is relying too heavy on a LeBron who is in his 13th season.

Yet, here is the dichotomy: much of this is LeBron’s fault. If we assume that LeBron wields the type of power in the Cavaliers front office that most say he does, then the current state of the Cavs is partly his fault. LeBron’s reluctancy to play power forward, his most effective position, led to the Cavs trading Andrew Wiggins for Kevin Love. Now, the Cavs have too many big guys (Love, Tristan Thompson, Timofey Mozgov, Anderson Varejao) and not enough wings. In the ultimate irony, the lineup best suited to stop the Warriors’ “Death Lineup” with Draymond at the five would be Kyrie Irving-JR Smith-Iman Shumpert-ANDREW WIGGINS-Lebron.

TV Viewing Tip: You will likely never experience this but Cleveland’s announcers refer to LeBron as “The King” during the flow of the game. I cannot decide if I admire their outright lack of neutrality or if it is a little too much.

Short Rant: I could try to conjure a Kevin Love trade but instead I want to talk about something else: Dan Gilbert, the Cavaliers’ owner, is the CEO of Quicken Loans. Multiple times Quicken Loans has been deemed guilty of issuing subprime loans to families. As a finance student, I find few things more disgusting than predatory lenders. Here are a couple links to stories illuminating Quicken Loan’s tactics.

San Antonio Spurs: 36 Wins – 6 Losses

Scouting Report: The Spurs are so good that the follow statements are not overly hyperbolic:

• Tim Duncan and Greg Popovich are the greatest player-coach combo since Russell and Auerbach.

• This season Kawhi Leonard could shoot 50% from the field, 50% from three and 90% from the free-throw line PLUS win Defensive Player of the Year.

• Kawhi Leonard is the NBA’s best wing defender since Scottie Pippen.

• This Spurs team is on pace to be a top ten team of all time. If the season ended today, they would have the greatest point differential in the history of the NBA.

TV Viewing Tip: Because the Spurs are not already good enough, they keep a 7’3” Serbian center named Boban Marjanovic on the bench. Occasionally he enters the game and proceeds to crush human beings (see video below). If the Spurs are on and your buddy shouts “BOBAN!” stop what you are doing and absorb every moment of the Boban experience.

Big Questions: Dissecting the Spurs vs. Warriors matchup is a whole article in itself (foreshadowing!), but here are a couple key questions: Do the Warriors have the faith in small-ball to put 6’6” Draymond Green on Lamarcus Aldridge or Tim Duncan if the Spurs go big? Complimentarily, can Harrison Barnes guard the other big guy if both are in? Is Kawhi the only guy in the league who can guard Steph? Also, how does Popovich manipulate his defense so Kawhi plays defense on Steph? Does Kawhi start the possession on Draymond and then switch on to Steph in the likely pick-and-roll?

The good news: the Spurs and Warriors play next Monday.
The bad news: the odds of Popovich revealing his gameplan to stop the Warriors are about as high as Jed York admitting he should have kept Harbaugh.

Golden State Warriors: 39 Wins – 4 Losses

I am not going to dissect the Warriors because we have the rest of the season to do that. However, I do want to comment on something. In this piece and the three preceding this one, I talked about every NBA team yet in some way every NBA conversation comes back to the Warriors. Not in an arrogant way but in a realistic way. The Warriors are so good that if you want to really win right now, you have to take big gambles on talent otherwise you just will not beat them (or the Spurs). This is part of the reason I had no problem with the Rockets acquiring Ty Lawson. Yes, it was a risk and it did not work, but if you want to beat the Warriors you need to take big gambles. Everything is cyclical and right now every NBA discussion comes back to the Warriors.

The NBA Fan Confidence Rankings: Part Three

Welcome to Part Three of the NBA Fan Confidence Rankings! If you missed the first two parts of this series, want relive my attempts at humor, or just want to increase Warriors World’s ad revenue, click here for Part One of the series and here for Part Two.

Today, I’ll explore tiers four and five of my completely arbitrary NBA Fan Confidence Rankings.

1. Team Apocalypse

2. Team Do Not Renew the Season Tickets

3. Team At Least We’ve Got This One Thing

4. Team Future

5. Team Only A Couple Moves Away

6. Team Contender

Degree #4: Team Future

Symptoms: The hope is palpable. There are a couple core players that you think will be there for the long-term. You are even contemplating buying one of their jerseys. Having tickets to their home games has increased your hipster rating among your friends by a solid 25%. NBA nerds everywhere, whether it be within the depths of Reddit or Twitter conversations 60 tweets long, are fascinated by your team. Your team’s in the NBA equivalent of the honeymoon period for Presidents: all missteps are forgivable, you are just happy with the hope they are providing.

Boston Celtics: 20 Wins – 19 Losses

Scouting Report: The Celtics are bursting with assets. Combing through their roster is like reading a list titled “Players Contending Teams Should Trade For.” Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley are two of the best perimeter defenders in the league- NBA bloodhounds. Stretch bigs Jared Sullinger and Kelly Olynck have “future Spurs role player” written all over them. Isaiah Thomas is the ultimate plug-and-score player and wing Jae Crowder fits the position-less NBA incredibly well. Not to mention, Boston has rights to Brooklyn’s first round pick in 2016, 2017 (via a pick swap) and 2018. Brooklyn’s current situation might be the worst in the history of the league, seriously, and those picks are going to be nice. [Editor’s Note: Check out the Cavs under Ted Stepien, the owner whose conduct brought about the rules limiting how teams can trade first round picks. It gets rough. -DL]

TV Viewing Tip: Celtics coach Brad Stevens has quietly become a top five coach in the NBA. Pay close attention to his plays coming out of timeouts, they are often masterpieces. Fun Brad Stevens fact: Tim Duncan is older than Brad Stevens. Timmaaaaaaaay!!!

Big Question: The Celtics have completed all the prerequisites to be a real player in any NBA transaction. If Demarcus Cousins demands out of Sacramento (which let’s be honest, he probably should), will the Celtics sacrifice their valuable picks in a blockbuster trade?

Orlando Magic: 20 Wins – 18 Losses

Scouting Report: The Magic are a funky team, an acquired taste. Their foundational guard duo of Victor Oladipo (2nd overall pick in 2013) and Elfrid Payton (10th overall in 2014) essentially says “FU” to the analytics that mandate guards must be able to shoot. Oladipo and Payton have what my high school coach would call good “floor games” meaning they influence every component of the game. Speaking of school that is not college, I was lucky enough (or unlucky, depends on your perspective) to guard current Magic wing Aaron Gordon every day during middle school basketball practice and once a year during high school games. Here is my completely biased case on why the Magic need to play Gordon more: the NBA is trending towards position-less players. Guys that can switch on defense, exploit weird match-ups on offense and give their coach maximum flexibility. This movement is undeniable. Gordon is the perfect fit for this. When combining Gordon with wing Tobias Harris, the Magic have a set of hybrid forwards with games that complement each other (Gordon making up for Harris’ defensive struggles and vice-versa). Give me more Gordon!

TV Viewing Tip: Discover the YouTube gold-mine that is Magic rookie Mario Hezonja. Coming out of the draft he was described as the “European JR Smith” which is the most exciting rookie description I have ever heard. [Editor’s note: It just so happens that the editor of Warriors World is the Archbishop of the Church of Hezonja and the sponsor of his Basketball-Reference page. -DL]

Big Question: Hezonja and current starting shooting guard Even Fournier are somewhat redundant as players. Will the Magic move on from Fournier after this season?

Detroit Pistons: 21 Wins – 17 Losses & Utah Jazz: 17 Wins – 21 Losses

Scouting Reports: I paired these two not only because I am attempting to keep this under 2,000 words and because they have inverse records but because both have centers (Andre Drummond in Detroit and Rudy Gobert in Utah) who genuinely dictate how the game is played around them. Detroit is developing a real core with Drummond, Reggie Jackson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marcus Morris, and Stanley Johnson. Meanwhile, Utah treated the first half of last season as a laboratory to understand their style, and ever since they’ve been systemizing it to the tune of sustainable results. Both have huge upsides.

TV Viewing Tip: If you are interested in diving deeper into in-game strategy, watch how Pistons point guard Reggie Jackson uses screens on offense. Since Jackson is not an overly terrifying three-point shooter, defenders go under screens* that are set for him. To counter this, Jackson reverses direction and runs his defender back through the same screen, just going the other direction. This is both highly effective and fun to look for during Pistons games.

*Going under a screen means looping beneath the screen, instead of following the player over the top of the screen. To put this in a Warriors lens, going under on an on-ball screen set for Steph Curry is often times a recipe for three points for the Warriors.

Big Question: The size of a team’s market has progressively become less and less of a deciding factor in free agency. Heck, last off-season Greg Monroe chose Milwaukee (Milwaukee!) over the Knicks and Lakers. Can Utah, one of the league’s smallest markets, attract a free agent?

Indiana Pacers: 22 Wins – 17 Losses

Scouting Report: Two years ago, the Pacers took the LeBron Heat to six games in the Eastern Conference Finals by playing bully-ball with Paul George playing as a shooting guard / small forward hybrid. Possessions were walked up the court and wins were grinded out. Two years later, the Pacers are playing at the league’s seventh=fastest pace and have Paul George playing some power forward. The Pacers have completely evolved and it is working! The difficulty of this change cannot be overstated enough. The Washington Wizards tried to do the same thing this season and their defense rank plunged from fifth to eighteenth. The Pacers are playing faster and their defense has gotten better as they are currently second in points allowed per 100 possessions.

TV Viewing Tip: Love the movie Hoosiers? Every once in a while, the Pacers wear the famous Hickory uniforms. Nostalgia!

Big Question: At one point, the Pacers had Paul George and Kawhi Leonard on their roster. Leonard was then traded for current Pacers point guard George Hill. What could have been, if the Pacers kept George and Leonard -both MVP candidates and absolute destroyers on defense- on the same team?

Milwaukee Bucks: 16 Wins – 25 Losses & Minnesotta Timberwolves: 12 Wins – 28 Losses

Scouting Reports: Opinions on the Bucks are like opinions on Twitter’s stock price: there is no middle ground. You are either incredibly bullish or convinced that the growth everyone talks about just will not materialize. Being bullish on the Bucks (which sounds like the domain name of a fan website) means believing in Giannis Antetokounmpo’s (AKA the Greek Freak) raw athleticism, the Bucks’ over-caffeinated version of the Warriors’ switch everything defense and Jabari Parker’s ability to develop a three-pointer. The pessimistic side will argue that the Bucks are the ultimate “go under the screen team” because nobody besides Khris Middleton can shoot and that point guard Michael Carter-Williams cannot run the offense for a team who hopes to make it to the playoffs. The Timberwolves are equally young but a lot less controversial in their trajectory. To continue the tech analogy, they are like Airbnb. Karl Anthony-Towns and Andrew Wiggins might be two of the most untouchable players in the league right now.

TV Viewing Tip: Give the Bucks a chance. When they are humming, their interchangeable pieces of defense (starting with Carter-Williams, who’s a 6’6” point guard) are thrilling. This and the sheer excitement of Giannis (who has a 7’5” wingspan!) have made the Bucks the official second favorite team of my college apartment.

Big Question: Will the T-Wolves fire coach Sam Mitchell? Most people agree that he is both beloved by the organization and not their coach of the future. Can the T-Wolves make the tough decision?

Degree #5: Team Only A Couple Moves Away

Symptoms: You have been to the playoffs but are missing something. You are worried your opportunity may fade. It is agonizing. You feel like the person voted off one episode before the season finale of Survivor. You know that as Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s Twitter bio reads, “Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.”

Miami Heat: 22 Wins – 17 Losses & Chicago Bulls: 22 Wins – 15 Losses

Scouting Report: I find the Heat and Bulls to be in remarkably similar situations. Both have multiple huge question marks going into the off-season: Dwayne Wade and Hassan Whiteside are both free agents in Miami and Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose might not be on next year’s Bulls. Both have stable franchise cornerstones in Chris Bosh and Jimmy Butler. Both have young players slowly stealing minutes from veterans: rookie Justice Winslow (just 19 years old!) and Tyler Johnson (Bay Area native!) in Miami and the quartet of Bobby Portis, Doug McDermott, Nikola Mirotic and Tony Snell in Chicago. Neither are contenders but I am not sure either team fully grasps that reality yet. These two, especially Chicago, will be two of the NBA’s most fascinating and active trade deadline teams.

TV Viewing Tip: Try to figure out what Heat wing Justice Winslow will be in five years, because I sure can’t. Some games Winslow looks like the next Kawhi Leonard, and other nights he looks like a role-player who specializes in defense.

Big Question: Will Heat orchestrater Pat Riley put Winslow on the trading block in attempt to acquire another star? Will Chicago give up on the Rose era and trade their hometown hero? Will Bulls rookie head coach Fred Holberg figure out how to allocate playing team among his team that in many ways is positionally redundant? The questions are endless with these two!

Atlanta Hawks: 23 Wins – 16 Losses

Scouting Report: The Hawks specialize in what I affectionally call “open source basketball.” No player is irreplaceable. The system is the driver of success. The Hawks are highly efficient on offense: third in assists per game (only trailing the Warriors and Spurs), and fourth in true shooting percentage*. Their success seems incredibly sustainable. Think of them as the southeast, less talented version of the Spurs.

*True shooting percentage is shooting percentage adjusted for the value of three-pointers and free throws.

TV Viewing Tip: Decide for yourself whether Atlanta’s logo looks more like the character from Pac-Man or an actual Hawk. I vote Pac-Man.

Big Question: Hawks backup point guard Dennis Schröder has many things going for him: an umlaut in his name, a system that fits his game uniquely well and the third best plus-minus rating on the team. Yet, he’s still the backup point guard behind Jeff Teague; Teague sports the team’s third worst plus-minus rating. How will Atlanta handle this situation? Will the play the two together more, explore trading one of the two, or just keep the status?

The NBA Fan Confidence Rankings: Part Two

Welcome back to the NBA Fan Confidence Rankings! These rankings are like the podcast Serial, you should really enjoy them in order. If you missed Part One, click here!

In Part One of this series, I said that like a good suit I would do these Fan Confidence Rankings through three separate pieces. I lied, but not blatantly – I’m no Volkswagen engineer. The NBA has a lot of teams and we have varying attention spans, so I am issuing an executive order and making this series four parts.

As a quick refresher, here are the Six Degrees of Fan Confidence I laid out in Part One. Today, I’ll be focusing exclusively on teams in Degree #3.

1. Team Apocalypse

2. Team Do Not Renew the Season Tickets

3. Team At Least We’ve Got This One Thing

4. Team Future

5. Team Only A Couple Moves Away

6. Team Contender

Degree #3: Team At Least We’ve Got This One Thing

Symptoms: Fandom of these teams parallel California’s current water situation: not great, but at least we have this one El Nino thing! Or, if you want to visualize these teams in terms of literature, imagine the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock in The Great Gatsby. To Gatsby, the green light represents his hope of being reunited with Daisy. Like Gatsby, these fans can see the future. They can visualize it. Dream about it even. Yet, it remains distant. Will these teams fail like Gatsby, or will they use that special one thing to reach the green light? Welcome to Degree #3.

Los Angeles Lakers: 8 Wins – 28 Losses

Scouting Report: The Lakers’ entire organization warrants questioning. What is their identity? What is their goal? Is their coach legitimately trying to lose games? Yet, amidst the darkness, there are positives: They are on pace to retain their draft pick this season and enter the Ben Simmons sweepstakes. The last two drafts have not been busts because D’Angelo Russell appears to have real court vision, Julius Randle has possibilities as a more mobile Zach Randolph and Jordan Clarkson has likely been their best player this season. Finally, they are still in LA. As our increasingly connected society makes “big markets” less important, LA remains the city seemingly every NBA player trains in during the off-season. LA as a destination still matters, somewhat.

TV Viewing Tip: The Lakers might be the league’s most watchable awful team. There are first round draft picks sulking on the bench as guys with names like Metta World Peace play ahead of them. You can watch head coach Byron Scott, who is like your grandpa at Christmas dinner who is not allowed to say anything because everything he says is 20 years behind current thought. Finally, they have Kobe shooting 26% from three, and here is the catch…he is shooting 7.3 of these threes per game! Do not resist the absurdity that is the Lakers- embrace it.

Big Question: If D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson and Julius Randle don’t all pan out, what happens next? While they might tank their way to a top three pick this year, the Lakers have traded two other first and second rounders. Those three guys are their future. They have to be good.

Memphis Grizzlies: 19 Wins – 18 Losses

Scouting Report: The Grizzlies are the definition of winning without contending for a title. In a league of shooting and wing play, they do not have any real shooters and their best wing is Courtney Lee. The thing is, these problems are not new. This has been the story of the Grizzlies for half a decade. If they truly want to contend and not merely produce slightly above average teams, things need to change. Look for possible trades here.

TV Viewing Tip: Footwork is the most underrated part of offensive post-ups. If you are a young player hoping to improve your post game, watch the low post footwork of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. Jab steps, ball fakes, drop steps, these guys have it all.

Big Question: Will the front office shake up a team that has won enough to bring in steady home crowds (and steady gate revenues), but will not contend for a title?

New York Knicks: 18 Wins – 19 Losses

Scouting Report: Remember the phrase “stretch four” describing a power forward who could stretch a defense with outside shooting? Welcome Kristaps Porzingis, the Knicks 7’3” Latvian rookie who is revitalizing the idea of a stretch five. Porzingis’ value cannot be understated. On defense he can defend the rim and switch on to guards when defending pick and rolls. On offense he has a real jump shot and crafty footwork. Also, he is 7’3”. There is no better example of fans holding on to one thing than Knicks fans with Porzingis.

TV Viewing Tip: As you revel in Porzingis’ greatness, attempt to come up with a nickname for him. So far, we’ve got “The Zinger” and “The Latvian Gangbanger” but we can do better. [Editor’s note: 3 6 Latvia and Worldstar are two KP nicknames I enjoy – DL]

Big Question: Will the Knicks abandon Phil Jackson’s beloved triangle offense? The triangle is based on low post scoring and mid-range jumpers. Considering that Porzingis is more of a stretch player than a low post player and mid-range jumpers are the NBA’s least efficient shot, the Knicks should consider evolving.

Dallas Mavericks: 21 Wins – 15 Losses & Charlotte Hornets: 17 Wins – 18 Losses

Scouting Report: The Mavs and Hornets are the definition of the whole exceeding the sum of the parts. The Mavs roster is full of players coming off injuries, league cast-offs, late first round draft picks, past their prime players and a step-back jump shooting German. Yet, they just win. Meanwhile, the Hornets lost their best defender in Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and are allowing the same number of points per 100 possessions on defense they did last year.

TV Viewing Tip: Reminisce on the 2011 Finals when the Mavs beat the Heat. I do not think that championship is appreciated enough. They beat a Heat team with Lebron, Wade and Bosh all in their primes! Their defensive scheme broke Lebron during that series and it continues to amaze me.

Big Question: Do the Mavs have a long-term plan? Since 2011, the plan has been to maintain salary cap flexibility to chase free agents. On the whole, that plan has failed. The Mavs will not have their first round pick this year. Where do they go from here to avoid the Grizzlies fate of winning but never contending? Concurrently, the Hornets are under an ownership imperative to make the playoffs this year. That demand played a part in the Hornets reportedly turning down four first round picks (!!) for the 9th pick in the 2015 Draft, which they used on Frank Kaminsky. Is there a vision for the franchise?

New Orleans Pelicans: 11 Wins – 23 Losses & Washington Wizards: 15 Wins – 18 Losses

Scouting Report: I put these teams together because they are both massively underperforming yet each possess a top player in the league: Anthony Davis (New Orleans) and John Wall (Washington). Outside of Davis, the Pelicans have close to nothing: Omer Asik is strangely unplayable against competent teams, forward Ryan Anderson is impossible to build an NBA defense with and the guards are always injured or on minutes restrictions. Meanwhile, Washington has completely revamped their style to an up-tempo system (they are currently fifth in possessions per game) at the cost of their defense. That said, Davis and Wall project to be two of the league’s best players for the next decade. Hope remains.

TV Viewing Tip: Amid the disaster of a roster around him, Davis remains top five in the category of players who make you think “humans can do that?!”

Big Question: How long is Washington willing to wait to see if Bradley Beal can make the leap?

Philadelphia 76ers: 4 Wins – 33 Losses

Scouting Report: The 76ers are the NBA’s greatest experiment. I keep notes on every NBA team and I have more notes on the 76ers than the entire Southeast Division- they are just fascinating. If I am going to criticize Memphis for winning without contending, I must applaud Philly. Everything they do, tanking* for top picks and hoarding draft assets, is an attempt to acquire a legit NBA star. And NBA stars are how you win titles. This year alone, the 76ers will likely have three (maybe four) first round draft picks. That’s their version of “at least we have this one thing”. Yet, how much longer can their tanking go on? Then the counter becomes Philly is so deep in this tanking strategy that they cannot pivot out of it. With that said, there are ways they can handle the tanking better. Player development has become a problem in Philly. For a team built to fail this is not a surprise but it is a problem. The 76ers need to find a point guard capable of getting the ball to their young players (Okafor, Noel, Grant, and Covington) in positions where they can succeed.

*I define tanking is putting a team together with a goal not centered on winning as much as possible. 

TV Viewing Tip: Don’t watch. Instead, do some research on the contracts the 76ers give to second round draft picks. They are four year deals laden with non-guaranteed seasons that provide a false sense of security to players and leverage young players in ways that other teams just do not. I personally find them disgusting.

Big Question: Will Philly’s owners stay patient long enough to see through the massive rebuilding job they originally okayed?

Houston Rockets: 17 Wins – 19 Losses

Scouting Report: The Rockets are the Chipotle of the NBA. In a comically short period of time they have lost the trust of people everywhere. The Ty Lawson experiment has failed. Dwight Howard still cannot post up. Even James Harden, who had a legit case for being better than Steph Curry last season, is struggling. Houston is an odd fit for the “at least we’ve got this one thing” category but they have been too bad to rate any higher. Their own coach said they have been “disrespecting the game.” There are a couple positives: 21 year-old big man Clint Capella has been really good and Harden is very slowly emerging from his slump.

TV Viewing Tip: Most NBA defensive breakdowns are hard to identify in the flow of play. This is not the case for the Rockets as you can very clearly see their lackadaisical transition defense. [Editor’s note: and back cuts- the depleted Warriors beat them almost entirely with back cuts and transition buckets. – DL] Watch for this and you will understand why their coach thinks they’ve been disrespecting the game.

Big Question: What happens at the trade deadline? Houston has been looking to trade Lawson and the cap space to take on a big player. Expect many news updates on “the latest from Houston” during the deadline.

The NBA Fan Confidence Rankings: Part One

For Warriors fans, 2015 was like being a Roman during the height of the Republic, a 49ers fan when Harbaugh arrived or an Uber investor right now. Life couldn’t be better. Or as Drake would say, “what a time to be alive”. A quick review of 2015 in Dub Nation…

• The Dubs lost one regular season home game all year and, that one game went to OT!

• Draymond began carrying himself like the world’s biggest rapper.

• “The City” jerseys made a reappearance.

• Small detail: the Dubs won a ring, which Bogut promptly got fitted to his middle finger.

• One more thing: the Warriors need to go a pedestrian 44 and 8 to finish with the best regular season record ever.

Yet, as Romans and 49ers fans learned, and Uber investors may or may not learn, booming times do not boom forever. The rest of the world catches up. Or in this case, the rest of the NBA catches up. What does the rest of the NBA look like?

I want to escape the Warriors bubble and examine the rest of the league. With casual sports transitioning from football to basketball, I think/hope escaping the Warriors bubble will provide value to readers. Over a few pieces, I am going to cover every NBA team. I know not all of you watch the rest of the league, so I will try to tip-toe the fine line of not getting too NBA nerdy while still providing quality writing. Attempting to provide quality while keeping costs low…this is the closest I have ever felt to my public college’s administration.

Like a good suit, I will do this through three separate pieces. That said, I do not want to inundate you with another power rankings article; sports have commoditized power rankings like youth soccer has commoditized orange slices. Instead, I will use a ranking system I debuted last year: the Six Degrees of Fan Separation. The idea derives from the six degrees of separation theory*, and is rooted in the idea that any team’s fan base has a confidence level within five degrees of another team’s fan base.

*The Six Degrees of Separation theory says that anyone on earth can be connected to someone else by a maximum of six acquaintances.

I have named each of the six degrees after how fans of that team can think about their team. The degrees are:

1. Team Apocalypse

2. Team Do Not Renew the Season Tickets

3. Team At Least We’ve Got This One Thing

4. Team Future

5. Team Only a Couple Moves Away

6. Team Contender

Each team’s analysis will have their current record plus three parts: a scouting report on the team, a fun or silly thing to watch for if find yourself watching this team, and a big or sneaky big question surrounding the team. One more thing: if you are new to the broader NBA, welcome! This season has been especially awesome – you will feel like a baby having bacon for the first time. On to the rankings!

Degree #1: Team Apocalypse

Symptoms: Fans are ready to dump everybody: players, the coach, even the mascot. If you have season tickets that means you are either an amateur NBA scout or forgot they auto-renewed. It is a hard life. So hard that only one team made this tier. Congratulations to the…

Brooklyn Nets: 9 Wins – 22 Losses

Scouting Report: I thought Team Apocalypse was a fitting name for this category because the Nets are the NBA’s version of the Walking Dead. They could not be more behind the curve: they are 29th in three-pointers attempted and 27th in three-pointers conceded. Amazingly, it gets worse. The Nets cannot even tank for a high draft pick because they owe their first rounder to Boston. But that is not all of it either. They actually do not have the rights to any of their next three first round picks and might only have one second round pick in the next half decade. Their GM Billy King might not be the brightest glow stick in the pack. The Nets are seriously the NBA’s version of the Walking Dead zombies: somewhat alive but lacking any real future.

TV Viewing Tip: The question here really should be, “what would have to be happening to force you to watch a Nets game?” If you are drunk (the only explanation I can think of) and turn to a Nets game, marvel at these two things: their beautiful home court floor design, and that a couple years ago Jarrett Jack (their current point guard) was the Warriors’ closer – not Steph.

Big Question: How do you orchestrate a complete rebuild without any (any!) draft picks? Look for the Nets to be one of the teams who throw a max contract at Harrison Barnes next summer.

Degree #2: Team Do Not Renew the Season Tickets

Symptoms: You could lie to yourself and tell yourself that the future is bright but if you are being real it is not. Kind of like the Jed York 49ers. You are checking the price of your MLS team’s tickets while repeating in your head that soccer is the future. It is not the best of times.

Sacramento Kings: 12 Wins – 19 Losses

Scouting Report: What the Detroit Pistons are doing (surrounding their beast of a center, Andre Drummond, with shooters at all positions) is what the Kings should be doing. In an era of ball movement and perimeter shooting, Kings center Demarcus Cousins is the NBA’s best bully and must have the offense run through him. Instead, Sacramento has surrounded him with the bricktastic players like Rudy Gay, Rajon Rondo and Darren Collision. Their front office might be more criminal than their team. They just drafted Willey Cauley-Stein over Justice Winslow and Emmanuel Mudiay and basically gave the Sixers a first round draft pick for free during the offseason. [Editor’s Note: That gave them the cap space to sign Rondo to a one-year deal for more money than anyone else was likely offering. Woo!] Their story is best told by this quote from Cousins last year right after he hit a made game winner: “The marathon continues”. Well, that’s depressing.

TV Viewing Tip: Watch Rondo! Before the season began I thought he could be playing in China within a the year or just retire to be a philosopher. Instead, he has been awesome in the weird way only Rondo can.

Sneaky Big Question: The fundamental question might be: Can Cousins make it ten games in a row without throwing a tantrum? The obvious question is: When does Cousins request a trade? The sneaky big question is: How long until the team’s minority owners revolt against wacky majority owner Vivek Ranadivé?

Phoenix Suns: 12 Wins – 21 Losses

Scouting Report: The idea of the Suns makes sense, the current team does not. Eric Bledsoe should be a top ten defender but in reality he just dogs it too much. Playing two point guards (Bledsoe and Brandon Knight) should facilitate a ball-movement heavy offense but too often the Suns offense turns into isolation basketball. Tyson Chandler should be teaching third year center Alex Len how to defend but in reality he is just taking up Len’s minutes to develop. The critique of the Suns is the same one a new President faces when hiring a bunch of academics to their administration: their theories sound nice but they cannot implement them in the real world.

TV Viewing Tip: Try to ignore their Microsoft clip art logo* and Halloween court. I think I used that logo on a middle school homework assignment.

*Shoutout to my man Trenton (@TSberg8) for that joke.

–Big Question: Is Jeff Hornacek their head coach of the future?

Denver Nuggets: 12 Wins – 20 Losses

Scouting Report: There are reasons for optimism. Rookie Emmanuel Mudiay is like a beta version of JohnWall and almost every player is either really young or a real trade chip. If you consider yourself a basketball hipster, watch the Nuggets – every player evokes the question of “what could he be in three years.”

TV Viewing Tip: Will Barton is the NBA’s version of the Energizer bunny. If he is in while you are watching, you are in a for a treat.

Big Question: How active will they be at the trade deadline? Almost everyone except Mudiay is in play. Danilo Gallinari. Kenneth Faried. Energizer bunny Will Barton. So many possibilities!

Portland Trail Blazers: 13 Wins – 20 Losses

Scouting Report: Okay, for the Blazers ignore the name of this category because you should renew your season tickets! This team is ridiculously young (third youngest team in the league) and about as entertaining as a 13-20 team can be. Besides being the league’s best rapper, Oakland native Damian Lilliard has 80% of Steph Curry’s game on offense. GM Neil Olshey has done an underrated job building the foundation for their rebuild: Al-Farouq Aminu and Ed Davis (two of my favorite under-the-radar players) are signed to non-escalating contracts, CJ McCollum might win Most Improved Player and the roster is full of high-upside players like Mo Harkless and Noah Vonleh.

TV Viewing Tip: Either revel in Lilliard’s complete lack of effort on defense or listen to GM Neil Olshey talk about Seinfeld for half an hour on Zach Lowe’s podcast.

Sneaky Big Question: Will the Blazers be able to tank for a better draft pick without sacrificing player development? The Blazers actually play hard every night and compete but this year’s pick is incredibly vital to their rebuild. It is a fine line they’ll try to balance.

Golden State’s Strength as an Organization

Forty of the last fifty-nine NBA championships have been won by four people: Red Auerbach, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, and Gregg Popovich. That is sixty-eight percent, which is equal to Google’s market share in online searches! If the government regulated the NBA, Auerbach-Jackson-Riley-Popovich would have to employ lobbyists to avoid accusations of a monopoly on NBA championships. Those four men are the puppeteers of the NBA and have been the orchestrators of six decades of basketball.

So, why am I highlighting four non-residents of Dub Nation? Because the story of the Warriors has become reminiscent of those four men. Not because Steve Kerr is a disciple of Jackson and Popovich or because I am predicting some epic dynasty for this Warriors era. It goes deeper than that. Beyond all the stories of small-ball, switch everything defense and three point shooting, the enduring story of the Warriors’ success is one of the organization as a whole.

On rare occasion a sports franchise transitions from being a team to being a philosophy. Auerbach, Jackson, Riley and Popovich mastered the art of turning a team into a philosophy. To be clear, this is not about a basketball philosophy. Heck, Pat Riley coached the the Showtime Lakers and the early ’90s Knicks, arguably the NBA’s most physical team, within a couple years of each other. Instead, this idea of a philosophy is about forging a stable organizational structure singularly focused on winning. Picture Popovich’s Spurs over the last fifteen years: they transitioned from a style that acquired the nickname the “Twin Towers”, to a pick-and-roll obsessed offense predicated on movement. Developing a franchise that becomes less of a team and more of a philosophy requires your organization to be in sync .

The vast majority of basketball writing is about the players, yet the vast majority of success is about the organization. The organization is the most overlooked component of NBA success. The examples of this are plentiful, but I will start with our Warriors.

In many respects, sports are like investing: the more long-term one’s orientation, the greater success they will experience. The Warriors’ long-term orientation began in 2012 when they traded Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut, and started tanking* during the second half of the season to keep their draft pick (which was owed to Utah if it fell outside the top seven picks). The short term effects of this were brutal: not only did the Warriors have another lifeless team but new owner Joe Lacob got mercilessly booed during a halftime retirement of Chris Mullin’s jersey. However, in the long-term this yielded the Warriors’ first true rim-protector (Bogut) in decades, Harrison Barnes (who the draft pick was used on) and room for Steph and Klay to begin becoming the Splash Brothers. There may be no better example of long-term thinking than the 2012 Warriors. It is important to remember that long-term thinking demands organizational support. If Joe Lacob was not okay with finishing 13th in the West during 2012, the Warriors would not have finished first in the NBA in 2015. Sometimes basketball team-building can be incredibly complex, like projecting the health of a player or trying exploit the intricacies of the salary cap. Yet, other times it is not so complex. The decisions of 2012 were straightforward but special and challenging in their own way. At that moment, the Warriors began developing their organizational philosophy.

*I am defining “tanking” as a team not exactly trying to win.

The entire organization of a team permeates through every part of whether you win or lose. With the 2012 decisions serving as a beacon of why organizations matter, I want to dive bullet-point style into other Warriors advantages that derive from the organization as a whole:

• Last season, the Warriors had the NBA’s most expensive coaching staff. Unlike players, there is no salary cap on coaches. If you are looking for a competitive advantage, look at coaches! All it comes down to is whether the franchise is willing to pay to acquire the best teachers. Unlike Jed York’s 49ers, the Warriors are willing to pay to employ the best coaching staff. The advantages reaped from this are tangible: Fetus Ezeli continually credits assistant coach Ron Adams for his development and last season Alvin Gentry (now New Orleans’ head coach) built the offense with Steve Kerr. Adams and Gentry did not come cheap. Paying for that extra coaching value is an organizational decision.

• Not only do the Warriors own a D-League team, but their D-League team (the Santa Cruz Warriors) runs the same offensive and defensive system as the main club. This eases the NBA transition for players like James Michael McAdoo. Another part of the philosophy.

• Strong organizations incentivize players to sacrifice; the Warriors’ contract situation serves as a prime example of this. While both Klay Thompson and Draymond Green could have gotten full maxes with other teams or even squeezed a little more out of the Warriors, they chose to provide a little extra wiggle room. These savings will be integral in the Warriors’ pursuit ofKevin Durant next summer (yes, that’s happening). As Nate Silver says, “the devil is in the details”. Strong organizations gain advantages on those smaller points, like minor contract savings.

As with so many things in life, the best way to understand an advantage is in a comparative manner. When analyzing other teams, the importance of the Warriors’ organization becomes even more clear.

During the latest NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics reportedly offered the Charlotte Hornets four first-round picks for the ninth overall pick in the draft (and the opportunity to draft Justice Winslow). Four first-round picks! Yet, the Hornets rejected the offer in part because of a team wide referendum that they make the playoffs this season. If you are Rich Cho, the GM of the Hornets, why trade for four first-round picks when there is real uncertainty beyond this season? The Hornets did the inverse of the 2012 Warriors and emphasized the short-term over the long-term. This was a defining moment in the Hornets and it was sidetracked by an organizational problem.

The Hornets story is far from unique. The Clippers have struggled at acquiring the right players ever since their coach, Doc Rivers, was named their President of Basketball Operations and effectively their GM*. That’s an organizational problem. The same rings true for teams like the Kings, Nets** and Lakers who lack long-term vision or philosophy.

*You know who loves coaches who are also GMs? All the others GMs! While Doc Rivers is coaching.the entire season, other GMs are in Europe searching for the next Porzingis!

**The Nets don’t have full control over one of their draft picks until 2019. Seriously. 

Conversely, the NBA’s budding teams have strong organizations. Look at the Utah Jazz who had the patience to use the first half of last season as a laboratory to figure out their defense, and now they have developed into one of the league’s best defensive teams. That sort of patience and willingness to let young players make mistakes demands organizational stability.

Basketball’s best example of a team becoming a philosophy resides in San Antonio. Kawhi Leonard would have been a solid player on any team in this league, but only the Spurs could turn him into the top-ten player he is today. The irony in all of this is that teams continually try to mimic their success by hiring their assistant coaches and adopting their approach to analytics and scouting. Sadly, teams miss the fundamental part of their success: the organizational structure. The Spurs are guided by a long-term oriented philosophy that everyone involved fully buys in to.

As NBA contracts become shorter, roster turnover increases and isolation basketball continues to fade into history, the importance of the organization will grow. The Warriors are embracing this by becoming less about a team and more about a philosophy.

Crafting a winning team while having a bad organization is like folding a fitted sheet without really knowing how to fold a fitted sheet: you can sort of do it but there will always be problems under the surface.

The Warriors are slowly becoming less of a team and more of an organization-wide philosophy. This might be their greatest advantage.

The Warriors are the Trend but What Comes Next?

Cyclicality remains undefeated. From the stock market, to Middle Eastern rebel forces, to Bay Area home prices, to the last names of Presidential candidates, the cycle that is humanity continues to repeat. Soon enough, one realizes that the question is not whether we’re in a cycle; but rather, where we are at in the current cycle and how this cycle differs from the last one.

The NBA’s current cycle is painstakingly obvious. In the same season the Warriors chase the 95-96 Bulls record of 72 regular season wins, Shaun Livingston has become substantially more valuable than Kobe Bryant. Welcome to the new age.

To be clear, this new age goes substantially deeper than mere “small ball.” While the Lakers’ strategy is the basketball equivalent of invading Russia during the winter, the Warriors’ shape-shifting style evokes the two greatest questions in basketball right now:

1. Exactly how much of the Warriors’ model is replicable? This question is one based on the current stage of the NBA cycle.

2. What is the next trend in the NBA? Phrased differently, what are the market inefficiencies that teams can exploit over the next ten years? This is about the next stage in the NBA cycle.

I’ll begin with question one, because it is partly a prerequisite to answering question two.

Question #1: How much of the Warriors’ model is replicable?

The Warriors’ model is one I consider an amalgamation of what I call the NBA’s five signal teams: the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Atlanta Hawks, San Antonio Spurs and the Houston Rockets. Not to instantly dock myself of any street cred I never had, but these five teams are the NBA’s version of the ahead of the curve boy band – call them the NBA’s One Direction. Each of these five represent a part of the NBA’s new age: Houston and Atlanta’s souped up versions of space and pace offense, Boston’s recognition of the massive value of draft picks*, Milwaukee’s switch-everything defense, and San Antonio for being ahead of the curve by default.

*Even more valuable now as the salary cap rises faster than the scale of rookie contracts.

To attempt to replicate the Warriors’ style is to attempt to replicate these five signal teams. In my humble opinion, the best way to do this is to acquire players who can do everything at the ‘B’ level. The Warriors have an abundance of these players including Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston and the NBA’s best do everything pretty well player, Draymond Green. These players are shape-shifting wings who can hit a three just as well as they can switch a screen; they make reads on offense instead of being confined to rigid play calls. Having an army of versatile players allows the Warriors to toggle between styles, which yields a massive competitive advantage.

While the NBA market has begun realizing the value of these positionless wings (look at the contracts Jae Crowder and DeMarre Carroll got last summer), if you yearn to copy the Warriors – and stop it Charlotte, you aren’t getting Steph Curry anytime soon- this is where you need to begin.

A couple more new era trends integral to winning supplement the shape-shifting movement, including:

• Injuries are more of a probabilistic outcome than they are luck. One of the most valuable things the Warriors did last season was resting the Splash Brothers, Bogut, and Iguodala during game 64 at Denver. This was a decision made in large part because of the wearable technology the Warriors wear during practices. A team treating injuries as sheer happenstance is light-years behind the NBA’s best.

• Speaking of technology, there is a difference between tracking analytics and effectively utilizing them. As Warriors assistant GM Kirk Lacob said at the 2015 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, “with analytics, seventy percent of the battle is just communication”. Turning the value on a spreadsheet into tangible value is a question that has plagued businesses for decades, and now challenges each NBA franchise.

Constructing a model NBA team is a massive chess game but these are the three most replicable parts of the Warriors’ formula: shape-shifting wings, actively preventing injuries and moving analytics from the spreadsheet to the game plan. Now for the second question.

Question #2: What is the next trend in this current NBA cycle? Where are competitive advantages to be had?

If effectively answering question one was like mastering macroeconomics, answering question two is like forecasting stock prices. It demands the foundation built in question one but even mastering the fundamentals of question is not enough to successfully analyze question two. But, for you Warriors fans, I’ll try. I see three key exploitable trends in the next part of the NBA cycle:

1) Defense. In this cyclical sport, the development of offense has far exceeded defense over the past decade. During the 2003-04 season, teams averaged 93.4 points per game (PPG). Last season, teams averaged 100 PPG. This has a direct correlation with an increase in threes attempted per game: in 2003-04 teams shot 14.9 threes per game which jumped to 22.4 last season. Defenses have been playing catch up with offenses for the past decade. The correction to this seems to be coming

Handling these offensive developments begins with acquiring those shape-shifting wings I mentioned earlier but it certainly does not stop there. Teams capable of eliminating the corner three-pointer (one of the best value shots in basketball), forcing live-ball turnovers and team rebounding with wings are the future of defense.

2) In a return to our theme of cyclicality, I believe the post-up will return. However, it will look different than the the post-ups of Hakeem Olajuwon and Kareem that grandpa can’t stop talking about at the Thanksgiving table. Instead, post-ups will run through wing players*. The most valuable play in basketball is a set that creates a four-on-three (they’re so important that I wrote a full piece on them last week). A post-up is the interior equivalent of the high pick and roll as it has the potential to force a double team every single time. This can produce some of those four-on-three situations.

*Unless your team includes Demarcus Cousins, or dare I say, Hassan Whiteside.

While players like Kawhi Leonard are already exploiting the wing post-up, I believe it will become a much larger part of the game over the next decade.

3) Organizational culture. Much like any good late night college dorm debate on world views, this forecast is admittedly big on theory and low on details but here’s the idea: organizational structure will become more important then ever in the NBA. As the rate of roster turnover increases year by year, free agents will begin picking teams based more on their organizational culture than their individual players on roster at that moment. We’ve already begun to see this with the Spurs as David West turned down a $12 million dollar payday with the Indiana Pacers to get paid $1.49 million and be a part of the Spurs culture. Discounts like that will never become the standard, but players signing with teams because of culture will. Teams who are able to foster an environment players would recommend to other players will gain a competitive advantage.

In the NBA, like so many things in this world, bravery is in shorter supply than genius. NBA executives know these trends (they generally know the next rotation in the cycle) but acting on that knowledge is harder and sometimes more risky than merely having it. Look at the Memphis Grizzlies. They have an analytically smart front office (with former ESPN analytics geek John Hollinger as VP of Basketball Operations), yet once again they do not have a floor spacing shooter.

Everything is cyclical. If you want to be the next Warriors*, you need to nail the current cycle the Warriors have helped defined, which means positionally ambitious wings and modern approaches to injuries and analytics. Then, you need to forecast the next part of the cycle.

*Important note: the next Warriors could be the Warriors. Their front office is that aggressive.

I think the next part of that cycle means exploiting the market inefficiency that is defense, bringing back the post-up as a way to create offensive advantages, and emphasizing organizational culture like never before.

One NBA cycle defined by two questions. Welcome to the new age and welcome to the questions of the next one.

The Sacramento Kings are the NBA’s Court Jesters

For months I’ve wanted to write about the Brooklyn Nets. They’ve traded their next three first round picks, might only have one second round pick over the next half decade, and just threw $110 million at the eight seed inducing combination of Brook Lopez and Thad Young. They’re basketball’s version of the zombies in The Walking Dead: somewhat alive, but lacking any real future. They’ve passed the modern NBA’s “how you know it’s bad” barometer by not even having the option to tank because they don’t have their own draft picks. So, that was the game plan: analyze the Nets’ basketball apocalypse.

But then Sacramento started happening, and it kept happening. I mean, what in the good name of Mike Bibby is happening in Sacramento?!

In gratitude for all the ways the Kings helped shape this championship Warriors team*, I’m going to write about the franchise from California’s capital. Mostly because the Warriors have been rightfully boring during free agency, but also because Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé is more confusing than your girlfriend when she says, “I’m fine”.

*2009 Draft: Kings take Tyreke Evans 4th, Curry goes 7th.
2011 Draft: Kings take Jimmer Fredette 10th, Klay goes 11th.
2012 Draft: Kings take Thomas Robinson 5th, HB goes 7th.

Vivek’s ownership of the Kings has been a gift that keeps on giving. Let’s start from the beginning…

-May 31, 2013: Ranadivé (a Warriors minority owner at the time) buys the Kings at a $534 million valuation. One of the many absurd parts of this story is that for all of Vivek’s failures, the team has increased in value by at least $250 million*. Imagine failing, but still making the profit of a lifetime.

*Forbes put a $800 million estimate on the franchise.

-June 3, 2013: Ranadivé commits the timeless sin of hiring a head coach before a GM. Mike Malone (the Warriors’ lead assistant and Mark Jackson’s arch-nemesis at the time) is Vivek’s choice, beginning his continual endeavor to impersonate the Warriors (more on this later). In related news, Malone just called coaching his 4th grade daughter’s team more fun than coaching the Kings. At least Vivek lasted four days in his ownership before his first mistake!

-2013 Off-Season: The Kings were surprisingly competent during this off-season. They drafted Ben McLemore fifth in a draft that’s beginning to rival the 2000 draft in its atrociousness; of the top ten selected in 2013, six are looking like busts and and three still have the potential to semi-bust. Props to the Kings for getting a player who might only be a semi-bust. Sacramento also lost Tyreke Evans in a sign-and-trade to the Pelicans; this was also fully acceptable. But, the Kings couldn’t resist an off-season without a terrible move, and signed Carl Landry to a four year, $28 million deal. This was questionable on many levels, but mostly because Sacramento already had three power forwards (PF) under contract (Jason Thompson, Chuck Hayes, and Patrick Patterson), and Demarcus Cousins. This marks the second stage of Vivek trying to be like the Warriors (Landry spent the season prior on the Warriors). Vivek’s least destructive off-season was the one in which he had the least experience as an NBA owner - interesting.

-September 23, 2013: Bad karma alert! Shaq AKA the man who used to refer to Sacramento’s squad as “the Queens”, becomes a minority owner. Then our man Vivek describes Shaq as, “the most iconic person on the planet”. That quote belongs on Shaqtin A Fool.

-2013-14 Season: While the season was a massive disappointment for the Kings, it was integral in building the foundation for the “how is this team going to fit together” squad we’ve enjoyed the past two years. Derrick Williams and Rudy Gay were acquired, furthering Sacramento’s shooting and defensive woes. Demarcus Cousins and Isaiah Thomas supposedly feuded, and rumors began circulating that Vivek wanted the Kings to play defense with four players with the fifth cherrypicking on the other end of the court. Of course, Vivek didn’t vouch for this idea without beta testing it: the strategy derives from when he coached his daughter’s youth league team.

-2014 Draft: The Kings draft Nik Stauskus. Grantland produced a great video series on this, helping me form power rankings for the most hilarious parts of this pick.

1. Vivek has the Kings’ draft room yell “Nik rocks!” to conclude their first phone conversation with their new player. It can be concluded that at this moment, Stauskus immediately contacted his agent about a trade.

2. Vivek referred to Stauskus as “Klay Curry” because he could supposedly shoot like Steph, but had Klay’s size. Example number three of Vivek wanting to be like the Dubs.

3. The Kings drafted a shooting guard one year after drafting a shooting guard (McLemore).

4. Vivek’s pitch to his GM for Stauskus was, “he claims that he made 91 out of 100 three point shots once”. Advanced analytics in full force!

5. The Kings’ decision came down to Stauskus or Elfrid Peyton, and they chose Stauskus. One of those players just got traded after one season, and another is the starting floor general of one of the budding teams in the NBA.

2015 Season: Ah, the season that crushed Demarcus Cousins’ basketball soul. Perhaps the most daunting question the Kings face is how to keep Cousins happy. So logically, after playing the second toughest schedule over 24 games, going 11-13 during that stretch even while missing Cousins for nine of those games, the Kings fired the first NBA coach Cousins ever truly followed: Mike Malone. The Kings then brought in Ty Corbin for a couple months as coach - they must have been inspired by his 25-57 record with the Jazz the year before. But, Vivek quickly became dissatisfied and hired George Karl to coach his band of disjointed misfits. Of course, Karl’s up-tempo style doesn’t exactly mesh with the style of the Kings’ biggest asset, Cousins, but that shouldn’t be a problem! And oh by the way, the Kings lost their GM (D’Allesandro) and top advisor (Chris Mullin), and anointed Vlade Divac as GM. It seems Divac’s a bit unqualified for the job. Quoting Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski: “Divac is largely unfamiliar with the collective bargaining and salary-cap rules, causing him to struggle with grasping the machinations of negotiating and completing deals”.

The Insanity Ever Since: Over the past couple months, the Kings have operated like a fantasy football team whose owner’s continually trying to compensate for missing their league’s draft. They’ve defied all sports conventionality, and have been treated as such by the rest of the NBA. It was too difficult to write a comprehensive paragraph for this zig-zag of an off-season, so I went to the bullet points.

• The volatile Kings picked the draft’s least stable player: Willie Cauley-Stein.

• The Kings offered John Calipari a dual role as head coach and GM, even though their coach (Karl) has held the job for a mere 30 games.

• In free agency the Kings offered Monta Ellis $4.3 million more than the Pacers; he chose the Pacers. They offered Wesley Mathews about $8 million more than the Mavericks; he chose the Mavs. It’s even been reported that Tobias Harris turned down a max offer from the Kings, to stay with the Magic on a non-max deal.

• Better yet, the big-name free agent the Kings did sign was literately kicked off his last team and is one of the least efficient guards in the NBA: Rajon Rondo. This evokes questions of who they were even bidding against to sign Rondo in the first place, and why they’re surrounding a post-up scorer and driving wing with a point guard who can’t shoot?

• Finally, the Kings traded Jason Thompson, Carl Landry (remember that contract?), and Nik Stauskus (“Nik rocks!”) to the Sixers as part of a salary dump to sign free agents. But, that wasn’t all. They also sent a protected first rounder to the Sixers and gave Philly the right to swap picks with them in two other drafts! This was terrible on so many levels. If the Kings really wanted to clear some cap space they could have used the stretch provision on Carl Landry, but I’m honestly not sure if GM Divac knows what that provision is. Or, think about it this way: Sacramento just sacrificed a first rounder and two pick swaps, to sign Rajon Rondo and Marco Belinelli. Good lord.

Ranadivé isn’t a bad man; his personal story’s actually quite incredible. But, the extent to which the Kings have become the laughingstock of the league is also quite incredible. For all his failures, Ranadivé has succeeded at one thing: copying the Warriors. The only problem is, he’s copied the dysfunctional Warriors of the past -not the modern Dubs. Could the minority owners of the Kings rebel against Ranadivé? Anything is possible. This is the current state of the Sacramento Court Jesters.

The Unpredictability of the Warriors Story

In seven days the Warriors will tip-off in the NBA Finals. Okay, now take a moment to breathe.

Fittingly, as summer movie season commences, day-by-day the tale of the Warriors seems more a movie. Like so many films, this one began with an enduring struggle.

From the end of the Rick Barry era (1978) to the beginning of the Splash era (2012), the Warriors had 8 winning seasons – that’s two less winning seasons than the Lakers had championships during the same time. To illustrate this level of suck, I’ll defer to my favorite new comedy: HBO’s Silicon Valley. In episode six of this season, tech executives had this conversation as an attempt to understand just how bad something (in this case, a new product) was: “is this Windows Vista bad…I’m sorry…it’s Apple Maps bad”. For the better part of 40 years, the Warriors were Apple Maps* bad.

*Other contenders: “Google Glass bad”, “Amazon phone bad”, and “Twitter stock bad”.

Now, after 40 years of waiting, the Warriors are in the NBA Finals. They’re led by an everybody-doubted-him superstar, play a style once dismissed by the “experts”, and represent a fanbase whose continued support might just be the most amazing part of this whole story. The journey seems worthy of Hollywood, or at least an ESPN 30 for 30. By now, we all know the leads and supporting actors in this film: Steph Curry, Draymond*, Klay Thompson, Steve Kerr, and Joe Lacob.

*Draymond’s slowly gaining the Brazilian soccer player trait, in that his first name is all you need to say to identify him.

Yet, I don’t want to concentrate on what the stars did to propel the Warriors to this magical place -we hear that story everyday. Instead, I want to focus on the people who indirectly allowed for all of this to happen. People who may not be a part of Dub Nation, but played a hand in enabling this magical season. Call these people the Warriors’ team of Indirect All-Stars.

Surprises from the Beginning: Ownership

Indirect All-Star: Larry Ellison.

On July 15, 2010 Chris Cohan* sold the Warriors to a group of investors led by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber for $450 million. This was shocking because of the man of who lost in the bidding, then Oracle CEO (now he’s chairman) Larry Ellison. For years Ellison’s been in that elite category of you don’t need to scroll down to see his name on the Forbes list of the wealthiest humans. The man’s currently worth $54 billion, bought a Hawaiian island for $300 million in 2012, spends hundreds of millions on yachts, and yet he somehow got outbid for the Warriors.

*If it weren’t for a certain southern California racist, Cohan would have a valid claim for worst NBA owner of the past couple decades.

Hypothetically who knows what Ellison would’ve done with the Warriors had he bought them, but in reality he couldn’t have done much better than Lacob has. In five years Lacob’s turned the Apple Maps of basketball franchises into a team statistical analysis website FiveThirtyEight predicted to win 2x the amount of titles of any NBA team over the next 5 years. The Joe Lacob reign has been as close to perfect as a new owner can get -something we might not enjoyed had Larry Ellison simply bid $50 million more (AKA increased his bid by less than .10 percent of his current net worth). Larry Ellison is to the Indirect All Stars, what FDR was to Keynesian economics -without their actions (or in Ellison’s case, inaction), this movement may have never happened in the first place.

The Franchise Changer: Steph Curry

Indirect All-Stars: the Clippers, mopeds, and Hawaii.

The two seem so distant from each other, but the We Believe season and the Warriors drafting Steph Curry were only 2 seasons apart. How did the Warriors fall off from beating the West’s number in 2007, to being awarded the 7th pick in 2009? Well, The drastic fallout began with the Clippers signing Baron Davis in 2008. That coupled with Monta Ellis (whose sports doppelgänger is clearly DeSean Jackson) only playing 25 games because of a moped accident, and Don Nelson beginning to have visions of his Hawaii retirement home as he coached the 2008-09 Warriors, resulted in a 29 win season. This atrocity yielded the 7th pick, and a player who reinvigorated Warriors basketball like Kevin Feige reinvigorated Marvel movies.

A few quick thoughts on Steph Curry…

• Let’s face it, the Warriors don’t have a 2nd “star”; instead, they’ve got three ideal third best players in Bogut, Draymond, and Klay. This would make Steph one of the few to win a title without a true 2nd star.

• Harden and Steph are both NBA glitches -the only difference is, Curry’s glitch is just way more fun!

• Vine should pay Steph royalties for the nightly highlights he brings them.

• Steph’s muscle memory is absurdly good. Three-point shooting and golfing are two of the most muscle memory dependent activities. Steph’s the best shooter ever, and in his spare time he’s a scratch golfer -that’s insane.

A Shrewd Supporting Cast

Indirect All-Stars: ping pong balls, Jerry West, Milwaukee, and Utah.

It seems fitting to reflect on the 2012 draft, the morning after a game that will (okay, could) be remembered by four words: playoff Barnes & Happy Festivus. What’s often forgotten about the 2012 draft, is that the Warriors had a 28 percent of falling below the 7th pick and therefore losing their pick to Utah. Instead, the Warriors kept the pick and emerged with Harrison Barnes. Shoutout to ping pongballs.

Speaking of drafts, the presence of Jerry West around the Warriors sometimes can sometimes go unnoticed. A quick recap of West’s résumé from his time as the Lakers’ GM: 6 championships, from the Showtime Lakers to the Shaq-Kobe era. It isn’t surprising that since West joined Golden State as an advisor, the Warriors’ drafts have been some of the league’s finest: Klay in 2011 (who West was a huge advocate of), and HB, Festivus, and Draymond in 2012. OKC’s 2007-2009 draft classes (netting Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, and a distractor from the reality that the NBA absolutely ditched Seattle) are often viewed as the best string current of top picks; the Warriors’ 2011 and 2012 classes are about as good as any team can do without a pick higher than 7.

*Fun Jerry West side note: on Tim Kawakami’s “TK Show”, West said that everyday he watches basketball from 4:30-11:30. 7 hours, everyday. No wonder the man’s the logo.

Finally, none of this would have been possible without two of Golden State’s defensive juggernauts: Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut. As such, a big thank you from Dub Nation to Utah and Milwaukee for making these acquisitions possible.

The Franchise’s Backbone: Dub Nation’s Commitment

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece called, “Why Warriors Fans Get To Say We”. Months later I still find Warriors fans to be the most incredible part of this entire journey. Outside of the religion this is European professional fútbol, it’s hard to find a precedent of fans sticking with a team like Dub Nation has with the Warriors. Bill Simmons once created a scale for grading crowd noise. The top level was, “everyone loses their $h*!”. There’s no higher level than “everyone loses their $h*!”. It’s a combination of sports pandemonium, bliss, and emotion. Oracle loses its $h*! like no other. It’s why in his MVP acceptance speech, Steph Curry pointed to the fans at Oracle home games as the reason he kept hopes alive for the future during the hard times.

For me, the arena/stadium of a sports franchise is like the front porch of a city. It’s a place where a community gathers, and enjoys their lives together. Warriors fans have created a front porch that made new neighbors want to stay and be apart of the journey.

Finally, the Indirect All Stars wouldn’t be complete without mentioning chief jinxer, Lil B The Based God.

At long last, “NBA Finals” and “Golden State Warriors” are antonyms no more. Enjoy these next couple weeks!

To Harden Fans: Stephen Curry’s the Real MVP

I get it. A Warriors writer trumpeting Steph Curry for MVP is like being underwhelmed by a 3D movie or bored by “breaking news” - it is predictable. But, this one’s special for Warriors fans.

The last Warriors MVP (Wilt Chamberlin) was crowned the same year the Civil Rights Act was enacted (1960). The Warriors haven’t even had a player reach Top Five in MVP voting since Rick Barry in 1976. Meanwhile, Houston got Moses Malone (2x MVP) & Hakeem Olajuwon (1x), Cleveland got Lebron who attracts MVPs like ABC attracts bad TV shows, and OKC got an entire franchise plus an MVP (Durant). The last Warriors MVP played for the Philadelphia Warriors. So yes, this means a lot to us.

You know the story. This is a two player debate…

• Lebron hibernated in Miami for two weeks during the season which eliminates him.

• OKC’s 13 & 11 since Westbrook entered alien mode (February 24th), which isn’t an exactly breathtaking record.

• Chris Paul, his ankles, and twitter can all attest that CP3’s out of consideration.

This is Curry vs. Harden. But instead of the same MVP article you’ve read on ESPN for months, I want to help you with something that actually matters: defeating Curry MVP haters in the sports fan’s equivalent of the boxing ring, the debate. Here are a couple of the biggest pro-Harden arguments.

1) “Steph’s got an incredible supporting cast. Harden puts the team on his back!”

This is classic Steph slander. Yet, there’s been some revisionist history on the quality of the teammates around Steph. A mere six months ago Steph was playing with a shooting guard who ought to be in Minnesota, small forwards failing to live up to the hype, an utterly undersized power forward, and a center destined for the training table. Now, the media treats the rest of the Warriors like they’ve been perennial world-beaters.

Yes, the role players have improved but, quality teammates shouldn’t damage one’s MVP bid. Durant didn’t get punished for Westbrook & Ibaka, same with Lebron for Wade & Bosh, and Jordan for Pippen & Rodman. Don’t forget, last season the Warriors also had the league’s best starting five. They’ve switched two of those five and the starting unit is still the league’s best. The common denominator: Curry.

With Curry on the court the Warriors have a positive 16.8 plus-minus. With Curry off the court the Warriors free-fall to a negative 3.1 plus-minus - equivalent to the Charlotte Hornets. Comparatively, the Rockets only drop 7.6 in plus-minus when Harden comes out; that’s a little more than one-third of the Warriors’ drop-off without Curry. Yet, it’s Harden whose presence means more?

2) “But, Curry’s just the best player on the best team. The award is Most Valuable Player, not Best Player on the Best Team!”

If Harden campaigners are so obsessed with value then why not examine value the way the rest of society evaluates it: production vs. compensation. While Harden counts $14.7 million against the cap, Curry’s deal is arguably the best in basketball at $10.6 million. Let’s say you view Harden and Curry as identical players and your’e consumed by the word “value”, you’d still choose Curry!

Yet, as FiveThiryEight’s Neil Paine recently pointed out, MVP has statistically proven to be in part a
function of wins. The Warriors aren’t just winning, they’re winning on an all-time scale. Excluding the past two weeks in which the Warriors haven’t had much to compete for, the Warriors possess a 10.8 plus-minus for the season. That number’s equal the ’96 Bulls plus-minus, the best since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976. Better yet, they’re doing all of this in the Western Conference -one of the NBA’s best conferences in recent memory.

Remember, this league wrecking offense is built around Curry. Curry’s an NBA glitch. Every screen for or by Curry presents a mini-crisis for opponents. Defensive rotations are entirely altered by the fact that Curry’s guy literately can’t play any help defense. The threat of Curry off the ball separates him from Harden off the ball. When Curry passes, teams enter high alert; when Harden passes, opponents relax.

3) “But isn’t Harden the bastion of the NBA’s fancy stats?”

Yes, Harden’s threes or layups only style is the analytical dream. Yet, outside of the “counting stats” (points, rebounds, steals, etc.), which are essentially useless due to the drastic difference in minutes played between Curry and Harden, Curry’s “fancy stats” exceed Harden’s. I’ll use three of the most commonly accepted analytics:

• Win Shares per 48 Minutes: Curry = 0.289 (1st in the league) and Harden = 0.264 (4th).
  The estimated number of wins contributed by a player per 48 minutes.

• Real Plus-Minus: Curry = 8.87 (1st in the league) and Harden = 8.30 (3rd).
  Plus-minus adjusting for the effects of each teammate, opposing player, and coach.

• PER: Curry = 28.05 (3rd in the league) and Harden = 26.82 (5th).
  The effectiveness of a player, adjusting for minutes player; can overweight offense.

Sure these aren’t incredible gaps between the two, but the Curry MVP argument isn’t dependent on data. It purely serves to show that in Harden’s field of formulas, Curry still wins.

4) “But if they switched teams, the Rockets would hardly be a playoff team and the
Warriors would still be laying waste to the NBA!”

Ironically, Kate Fagan, a contributor on FiveThirtyEight’s “Hot Takedown” podcast marketed on the idea of trouncing hot takes, was the journalist most recently guilty of this argument. For me, counterfactuals like this don’t hold value. They’re impossible to argue because they’re entirely theoretical. The “What If?” created by this question are too numerous to accurately answer it. If Houston has Curry do they reengineer their entire offense and run what Steve Kerr runs? Whose the starting backcourt on the Harden infused Warriors? Livingston and Harden?

While statements like this make for lively conversation, they aren’t real analysis of the MVP race and should be treated as such.

Not only is Steph setting a world record for points scored with one’s mouthpiece dangling from their mouth. Now only is Steph the human Vine reel. Not only is Steph a part of an all-time great regular season team. But, he’s the real MVP. He’s like a teenager capable of folding a fitted sheet: exceptionally unique in his skill and therefore valuable above all others.

Dear Kirk Lacob: An Open Letter from a Warriors Fan

Dear Kirk Lacob,

I feel like Warriors fans don’t know who you are. If you were a standard NBA Assistant General Manager my research on you would stop at your Twitter bio, but you happen to be the future owner of my beloved Golden State Warriors and that’s open letter worthy.

For those people who don’t cyber stalk the Assistant GM of their NBA franchise, I’ll provide some background on exactly who you are. We’ll divide these Kirk Lacob fast facts into two categories: the “We’re up 20 in the 4th quarter and David Lee is posting up” category (this will be the relatively mundane stuff) and the “Draymond just eyeballed Blake Griffin with a three and now he’s sticking his tongue at him” category (the more exciting stuff).

“We’re up 20 in the 4th quarter and David Lee is posting up” Category

1. You’re Joe Lacob’s son, approximately the same age as Mo Speights (27), and the future owner of the Warriors.

2. You’re one of us: you were raised in the Bay Area, went to high school in Menlo, attended Stanford, and most crucially have been a Warriors fan throughout our futile history.

3. This isn’t your rookie season in NBA management. You interned with the Celtics (when your Dad was a minority owner there), served as the Warriors’ Director of Basketball Operations, and honed your skills in the D-League as the General Manager of the Santa Cruz Warriors.

“Draymond just eyeballed Blake Griffin with a 3 and now he’s sticking his tongue at him” Category

1. You were named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Sports List. Your contemporaries on that list include, Usain Bolt, Gabby Douglas, and some guy named Lebron!

2. You already wield real influence within the franchise. How do I know? Like normal people do, I went back and watched the tape of the Warriors’ draft war room during the 2011 and 2012 drafts. During both drafts you were sitting next to chief decision maker, Warriors’ GM Bob Myers.

3. Your father is currently approximately 59 years old. There are only seven NBA owners older than 70. It’s likely that within 10 to 15 years you will become the face and head decision maker of the Golden State Warriors - hopefully you won’t also inherit your father’s hairline. By virtue of your young age your inherent comparison is to Jed York - another owner’s son born into the culture of Bay Area professional sports who attended a prestigious university and worked numerous jobs within his father’s franchise before becoming the face of the team (which is currently prioritizing grudge matches over wins but this isn’t a 49ers story so I’ll stop). But I hate that analogy. If your father Joe Lacob is the Steph Curry of owners, Jed York’s father, John York, was the Acie Law of owners. Unless you’re Keith Smart, the two are incomparable and as such, I find you and Jed incomparable.

4. Now that we’ve rewinded a little bit of your history let’s get proactive with a couple questions to send your way. With Warriors fans currently in a state of basketball euphoria previously unknown to the Bay Area, there’s never going to be a better time to get proactive. Unless you’re Gregg Popovich & Friends, NBA success is assured like Chipotle wrapping your burrito properly is ensured -it is not. Here are three long-term questions I consider integral to the future of this franchise and your future role as its leader.

1) Will you have the same willingness to spend in places where there isn’t a salary cap?

Basketball’s salary cap makes championships less buyable, but through the coaching staff and front office an owner is provided an avenue to forge a competitive advantage through spending. Your father currently employs the highest paid coaching staff in the NBA. This team’s league leading defense is a prime example of the power of spending, as the Warriors wouldn’t have the NBA’s stingiest defense without their expensive defensive coordinator Ron Adams. The same can be said for front office consultant Jerry West. Scouting and coaching expertise don’t come cheap, but they will come for the right price. Will you be able to stomach an extra $3 to $6 million from the bottom line to purchase yourself the best chance at championships?

2) Will the new arena turn into the basketball version of Levi’s Stadium or Oracle 2.0?

Each NBA franchise has a defining characteristic. For the Celtics it’s championships. For the Lakers it’s superstars. For the Pelicans it’s a terrible mascot. For the Cavaliers it’s some guy named Lebron. For the Warriors it’s home court advantage. Oracle’s the Rucker Park of the NBA. I worry that the team’s new bay-front palace will create an environment comparable to the one at Levi’s Stadium -dead. Warriors tickets are already the most expensive in the league; don’t price out the most loyal fans in the NBA and cost us what defines our franchise -that atmosphere at home games.

3) In times of adversity, will you emphasize continuity?

Dominant NBA franchises are synonymous with stable organizations. San Antonio, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Boston. Those are the only franchises to have won a title in the past decade and what commonalities do they all share: their GM was with them throughout that decade. With Bob Myers and Steve Kerr the Warriors have the opportunity to form a special GM-Coach relationship to last decades. You must emphasize continuity.

With these legacy defining questions lingering I’m comforted by your lifelong fandom. I look forward to decades of partnership in bringing championships back to our home. And hey, it must be comforting to know that when you become owner you literately can’t be the worst because Sacramento’s own Vivek Ranadivé has that spot locked up.

A Warriors fan,

Jared Williams

A Tale of Incomparable Offenses: Mark Jackson vs Steve Kerr

The storylines of sports television are like the roster of the Cleveland Cavaliers: there are three go-to stars, and the rest are either underused or simply bad. The big three of sports storylines are, the quarterback controversy, ESPN’s athlete crush of the year (Favre, Lebron, Tebow, Manziel, etc.), and the contentious coaching change. The Golden State Warriors are forever exempt from QB controversy and Steph Curry will never be debatable enough to warrant ESPN’s athlete crush, but the team did have a coaching change of Harbaugh magnitudes of tension this offseason: Mark Jackson to Steve Kerr.

Like all breakups, a coaching change inherently demands comparison between the old and new.. Yet, we must be weary of confusing what’s comparable with what’s a mere connection. Defensively, Jackson’s Warriors and Kerr’s Warriors are comparable. Besides ending the era of the Curry “courtesy assignment” on defense, Kerr’s defensive philosophy and results are relatively similar to Jackson’s. Offense is another story. Kerr’s offense is the antithesis of Jackson’s. On a simple level, Kerr’s offense has surged the Warriors from 10th in the NBA in points per game to 1st. Yet, this extreme departure from Jackson’s offensive philosophies is so extensive, it demands further exploration.

These drastic changes can be broken down in 3 ways. For the sake of alliteration we’ll label them as pace, placement, and passing.

1) Pace

Last season the Warriors played the 6th quickest tempo in the NBA, averaging 98.5 possessions per game. Under Kerr the Warriors have become the fastest pace in the league at 101.3 possessions per game. This directly correlates to Curry & Friends moving from 11th in the NBA in fast break points per game to 1st. With help from offensive coordinator Alvin Gentry (also, shoutout to Luke Walton), Kerr has built an offense which employs pace to wear down opponents.Conveniently enough, the Warriors are formulated for this acceleration in style, as their starters -excluding the BFG (Bearded Foreign Giant, Andrew Bogut)- are exceptionally young and their bench carries some of the finest reinforcements in the league. The Warriors are maintaining a pace for 48 minutes that few opponents can survive. This alone, is a radical difference from last season, yet there’s more.

2) Placement

This category should really be named the “Shutup Charles Barkley, Your Observations On the Warriors’ Offense are Less Accurate Than Karl Rove’s Observations On the 2012 Election” category, but WarriorsWorld is too classy for that. By “placement”, I mean the Warriors are getting to the spots on the court where their offense is most successful and efficient. Yes, this involves shooting 3s, but it’s a crime to label the Warriors as wholly dependent on the trey. In fact, the Warriors are getting to the basket more frequently -last campaign they were 11th in the NBA in points in the paints, now they’re 3rd. The Dubs are shooting less pull-up jumpers and have moved from 25th to 14th in touches within 12 feet of the basket. Closer touches has equated to increased interior scoring where the Warriors have gone from 17th to 6th in baskets made within 5 feet of the hoop. NBA teams whom “live and die by the three” don’t shoot the Warriors’ field goal percentage -the highest field goal percentage in the league. This offense is more dynamic than simple splashdown three-pointers.

3) Passing

Did you know that last season the Warriors were LAST in the NBA in passes per game? Seriously. Last year the Detroit Pistons started three post-players and still moved the ball more than the Warriors. In perhaps Steve Kerr’s most important feat, the Warriors are now 10th in the NBA in passes per game and lead the league in assists per game. Interestingly enough, this reincarnation of passing has centered around the one and only BFG, who’s averaging 7.4 more half court touches per game than last season. At its core the difference between Mark Jackson’s offense and Kerr’s can be told in this simple stat, the Warriors are averaging 66.9 more passes per game this season than the last.

Often times it’s the least flexible offenses that are easiest to stop -coaches can reverse-engineer their plays and disrupt their rhythm. A lightning pace, high efficiency positioning, and dizzying passing, provides the Warriors malleability -they aren’t confined to one set, play, or style. They’re unpredictable.

Yet, the biggest difference between Kerr and Jackson goes one final step further. Even though his team has the best record in the NBA, Kerr is saying quotes like this one from before the Celtics game…

“My biggest concern as a coach is to not confuse winning with progress, if that makes sense. And it’s a hard message…you’re not so much playing against all these different opponents, you’re almost playing against your own standards.”

The Warriors’ league leading offense will never be “done” because their leader will never stop pushing for the impossible -perfection. Coupled with unprecedented pace, placement, and passing, Kerr’s offense is comprehensively different from and superior to Jackson’s.